Thurl Ravenscroft (can that be a real name?): : “A Capital Ship”
A favorite song of mine in sixth grade was “A Capital Ship .”
A capital ship for an ocean trip / Was the “Walloping Window Blind”
No wind that blew dismayed her crew / Or troubled the captain’s mind
The man at the wheel was made to feel / Contempt for the wildest blow-ow-ow
Tho’ it oft appeared when the gale had cleared / That he’d been in his bunk below
So, blow ye winds, heigh-ho / A-roving I will go
I’ll stay no more on England’s shore / So let the music play-ay-ay
I’m off for the morning train /To cross the raging main
I’m off to my love with a boxing glove / 10,000 miles away
The bos’un’s mate was very sedate / Yet fond of amusement too
He played hop-scotch with the starboard watch / While the captain tickled the crew
The gunner he was apparently mad / For he sat on the after ra-ra-rail
And fired salutes with the captain’s boots / In the teeth of a booming gale
So, blow ye winds, heigh-ho / A-roving I will go
I’ll stay no more on England’s shore / So let the music play-ay-ay
I’m off for the morning train /To cross the raging main
I’m off to my love with a boxing glove / 10,000 miles away
The captain sat on the commodore’s hat / And dined in a royal way
Off pickles & figs & little roast pigs / And gunners bread each day
The cook was Dutch and behaved as such / For the diet he served the crew-ew-ew
Was a couple of tons of hot-cross buns / Served up with sugar and glue
So, blow ye winds, heigh-ho / A-roving I will go
I’ll stay no more on England’s shore / So let the music play-ay-ay
I’m off for the morning train /To cross the raging main
I’m off to my love with a boxing glove / 10,000 miles away
On rugabug bark from dawn till dark / We dined till we all had grown
Uncommonly shrunk when a Chinese junk/ Came up from the Torrible Zone
She was stubby and square, but we didn’t much care / So we cherrily put to sea-ea-ea
And we left all the crew of the junk to chew / On the bark of the rubabug tree
So, blow ye winds, heigh-ho / A-roving I will go
I’ll stay no more on England’s shore / So let the music play-ay-ay
I’m off for the morning train /To cross the raging main
I’m off to my love with a boxing glove / 10,000 miles away
I can’t remember the great soliloquies I delivered when I played Prospero and Lear, Big Daddy and Matthew Brady, but I can still sing one, maybe two verses of this song plus the refrain by heart seventy years later. Sung words store in your head easier than merely spoken ones.
Music is a memory aid.
MUSIC & ME 