Balladen om briggen Blue Bird av Hull- ukulele cover

Text/music: Evert Taube

The beautiful and sad ballad of the faith of the brig Blue Bird from Hull and poor Karl Stranne on christmas eve 1872.
Played on my Kiwaya kts-4 with some double bass added(Stagg EDB).

Loose English translation:

It was Blue Bird of Hull, it was Blue Bird a Brig
That with crumpling stumps came on
Over Soten in a blizzard with iced-over rigging
On Christmas Eve, seventy two
["Crumpling stumps" is a reference to a way of reducing a specific sail for storm conditions. Soten is an area of the ocean close to Smögen. Smögen is a traditional fishing village on the west coast of Sweden. The year is 1872.)

"Lash the Swede to the rudder, he knows how to heave-to on the wheel."
Shouted the skipper
"All right boys, switch off!"
And Karl Stranne from Smögen
Was lashed to the tiller
On Blue Bird that was doomed to be a wreck

He got Hållö lighthouse's glare
Despite wet snow and splashes
He stood half blind
He caught sight of it
And leeward there was Smögen, his home where his mother
Had just received the letter from Middelsborough

"Well, what do you say, Karl?"
"Will she make it?"
"No, Captain!"
"We got to flare for here is the end."
"We have Hållö on starbord and breakers under the lee."
"Out with the anchors, boats out."

But she didn't ride up
And she got a couple of breaking waves
That took the boat they had made ready
"I do think," said Karl Stranne "That my father has gone."
"Out towards us, I trust father!"

"Boat leeward!"
"Boat leeward!"
"It is father, it is us!"
"It's my father from Smögen. Hallo!"
"Boat leeward!" he sang out
"They are here jump in, every man we will be saved then."

It was Stranne, the Older
A viking, an eagle
Who, on Christmas Eve seventy two
Took his purified aquavit
From the spirit cupboard in the corner
To offer to the shipwrecked [men]

"What was the name of the ship?"
He inquired and poured
Nine drinks into tapered glasses
"The Brig Blue Bird."
The tenth glass he grasped
And he threw it to the floor in pieces

"Did you say Blue Bird, Captain? The Brig Blue Bird of Hull?"
"God in heaven, then where is my son?"
"Where is the boy, Captain, for our Savior's sake?"
It became deadly silent among the men in the corner

Old man Stranne
Took slowly his sou'-wester off
"Spare the mother, Captain, this evening."
"Name not the Brig that has been lost."
"Name not Blue Bird of Hull, be so kind."

And the Captain stood up
He was gray, he was haggard
The storm shrieked, barely heard were his words
When he said with a trembling voice to his host
"Karl stood lashed and was forgotten on board."

(Don't know why the pic is so small?)

Category:

Music

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• Balladen
• om
• briggen
• Blue
• Bird
• av
• Hull
• Ukulele
• uke
• ukke
• music
• Kiwaya
• kts-4
• stagg
• edb
• evert
• taube
• cover