Ship-shape and Bristol fashion

 Light the candle wick

Spick and span

With the soap brick

Scrub man, scrub

Til the deck is clean enough to lick

Ship-shape and Bristol fashion

Haul on the bowline

Don't cross the line

Toe the line

Full sail flickering

In a cool night breeze

Reminds me

Of my home

in England

When the wind is in the apple trees

Ship shape and Bristol fashion

Better tighten your belt

Get a new ink blot

Watch how it's spelt

Watch how he knelt

Captain at his prayers

First mate on the boardwalk

Coming down the stairs

Everything is quiet

Save the swinging of the hammocks

Monks in their bunks

Ship-shape and Bristol fashion

Cooks in the galley

Slaves in our chains

Singing how green is your valley

They'll be singing in vain

Rum is in the blood

In the jug and the alley

Keel sliding perfectly

Like two legs in a foul

Ship-shape and Bristol fashion

Passage

 Gonna make that final passage

Out of the salt sounding seas

Up into the skies 

Sail my ship

To heaven's shores

I'm gonna weigh anchor at the gates of Saint Peter

And I'll clamber out 

And get down on my knees

Oh the passage is a hard one

And I've worked my journey

Sometimes my cards won

Sometimes I pushed the gurney

But nothing sounds better than

than the snap of a sail

Like the belts of Spanish leather

In the wind of a gale

I've worked my passage and I'm on my way now

To the promised land of freedom and eternal ease

I'll not scrub the decks nor haul on the line now

For I'm following the light of the beckoning seas

Where's my Gondola gone?

 Where's my gondola gone

Where did my gondola go?

I parked it here yesterday

And today it's a no show

Where's my gondola gone

Where did my gondola go?

I'm just a regular punter

But don't call me an average Joe

Oh where's my Gondola gone

Where did my Gondola go?

Oh this is no fun

It's been stolen I should know

Oh where's my Gondola gone

Where did my Gondola go?

Oh was it Francisco

Or Tosca or Antonio?

Oh Where's my Gondola gone?

Oh where did my Gondola go?

Racing down the Venice canals

Is far from banal I know

But I need Venice Vice

Since my business partner's overthrow

Only 400 Gondoliers

One's a thief or syndicate Oh

Where's my Gondola gone?

Where did my Gondola go?

no it isn't nice, not like Venice

To be a Vice not a virtue

There should be a curfew

and no it can't be so

Where's my Gondola gone?

Where did my Gondola go?

Was it Don Juan, Carmen Electra

Was it Julius Caesar?

Christopher Columbus

Or Galileo?

Where's my gondola gone

Where did my Gondola go?

Billie Watts- the last pirate

Billie, Billie Watts

The last Pirate of the time

In an age of floating clocks

Where water turned into Wine

He was sent on transport docks

For committing a petty crime

Well Billie, Billie Watts

Can you please tell me the time?

It's a quarter to four in the morning

I was born tired and yawning

My mother put on the fire in the hearth

There was warmth and there was mirth

At the hour of my birth

But the fire cried out the last laugh was mine

Oh Billie, Billie Watts will you please tell me the time?

For your story is a long one and we must know of your crime

Well my mother was a poor one and she soon died in time

I became an Orphan child oh but the fire blew wild

Still they gave me to the church in the village of my Birth

And Christ he saved my life on the path where lives cross

I was given to my new father Edward Watts pipe maker

Oh Billie, Billie Watts, will you please tell us the time?

How came you to be lost to this village of thine?

It was as the century turned that I began to learn

My trade that would set me up for my life

I learnt to make clay pipes and carved them with a knife

And the villagers smoked my pipes from all around

Oh Billie, Billie Watts will you please tell us the time?

How came you to be convicted of such a crime?

It is the summer of 1815 and the sky turned dark and grey

From volcanic ash by an eruption in Indonesia they say

Nobody bought my pipes and my masters were not paid

So I was laid off work and in that poor state I stayed

The weathers they were cruel it was cold and snow ruled

In Oakhill not a scrap of food could be spared

I had to beg and borrow and when that failed I could not swallow

And to feed my hunger I stole so I wouldn't starve

Oh Billie, Billie Watts will you tell us what time it is

Is it time for you to be on your way?

Yes I was but a lad of eighteen when the law caught up with me

But I was old enough to know the score

They tried me in the docks and and instead of in the stocks

I was put on a boat bound for Australia

For the next six years, I worked with sweat and tears

And tried to build a life in Van Diemen's land

Life there was hard, but still, I could rely on my skill

That I had learnt back in my home village of Oakhill

Oh Billie, Billie Watts can you tells us what time you've got?

How you lived and you made a living down under?

I lived in this harsh land of devils and sea and sand

But still turned my hand to thieving

Something would turn my head though I'd known I was misled

I did the crime though still believing

I was lashed 200 times for my various crimes

And had so many scars I stopped counting

Oh Billie Billie Watts will you tell us what time you've got

For our clocks have all stopped at the feeling

It is 1821 and my new life had begun, When I married my Mrs Esther Wright

She was a convict just like me, and in our hearts we both were free

From the laws that robbed us of our homelands

I sold bootleg liquor and my boots were quicker, 

Than the lawmen who chased me up and down the country

But they finally caught up with me Even though I was free

And they put me back into a prison of their making

Oh Billie, Billie Watts, can you tell us what time you've got

For your time is running out and you must get going

It is 1829 and they've convicted me of another crime

This time a death sentence was pronounced upon me

So they put me on a government ship, and it set off on its trip

All the way across the seas to Cypress

But we were convicts born free and so we had to mutiny 

And fought for control of the ship and from our penalty

Oh Billie, Billie Watts, can you tell us what time you've got

For your crime of stealing two pigeons and a piece of cloth

Aboard we fought our captors, overwhelmed their capture

And in my Christian heart I could not harm them

For living is a trial and we must not live in denial

Of our true natures of brotherhood to all men

Instead we set them free on an island in the sea

And we set off on our pirate life to New Zealand

Oh Billie, Billie Watts, can you tell us what time you've got

And how you turned the other cheek and lived as a freeman

We journeyed round the South Sea to China, Tonga and Japan 

And lived our merry lives as a pirate and a freeman

Smoked many pipes, read my bible every night

And kept in my heart my homeland

Oh Billie, Billie Watts, can you tell us what time you've got

And how you made it back to your homeland

After such an exciting life, I missed my country's life

And I wanted no more the sea's adventure

So we returned to London docks and in the Thames were put in stocks

And I was tried for piracy like a traitor

But I never harmed my jailors and nor to my faith was a betrayer

But believing in doing unto others what you would have done unto you

Yet the law of England is final and I was executed from a high nail

They hung my body from London bridge as a pirate

In the city of the big smoke, I was a pipe smoking bloke

Who sang his last tune as the last pirate to swing

Oh Billie, Billie Watts now we know what time you've got

You've run out out and now your bell has tolled

Yours is a tragic story, but still one of hope and glory

And life of a strong heart and spirit never sold

The Nautical Strawberry

 Sea Shanty Shepton

Oh come to the Mendips

Where the rain drizzles down

And the cows are like seals who swim over the crown

Of the grass which swells

Like a giant tsunami to Wells

And the sheep are like dolphins skimming along

Ducking and diving singing whale song

The rabbits are the tuna leaping in the air

Badgers are the monkfish, Salmon are our hares

And we are the sailors fishing in these seas

Leas of green grasses, gardens of green peas

Bringing on our sea fruit, water raspberry

Marine cabbages and the nautical Strawberry

As we plough the paths with mattocks, 

As we scythe or strim the grass tussocks

We sing our sea shanty songs

To the moon and the sun

Oh I wish to be a real sailor hauling out to sea

But I'm in my tractor ploughing the brown lea

Oh our straits are real narrow, 

they are as wide a wheel barrow

And my moles do burrow furrows like twisting eels

And we have furlongs and leagues for our steeds

no 49th Parallel nor sea horses indeed

If you're looking for the Rock of Gibraltar

You could do no better than the Glastonbury tower

That sits like an island in the stream

Yet we still have our sea shanty dream

That we are battling spray jets

Hunting whales for bets

Porpoises and dolphins seen

Somewhere jumping over fields of green

You may see storms fronts rolling in

But we see hedges trapping us on the Mendips

As the shore is lapping thin

But we keep on a hopin'

There will be some ropin'

So we keep on haulin' in

For we may catch a whale

If you never try, you never fail

And if we keep tryin' we may eventually win

C'est Fin!

Something Fishy

 I smell something fishy

Down at the sea shanty

But I can't put my finger on it

Is it the wishy washy, dishy sloshy 

pantry?

Or is it the lack of a mast?

I think we're on dry land, Avast!

Put out me hearties

We'll sail passed Haskins

And up on over the ride

There's a strong wind at our tail 

 blowing filling our sails

Throw the jettison over the side

We need to lose weight

The hull she's a sinking

A listing over to one side

From when she hit a car at Tescos

Whooah there she blows!

A whale down the West Shepton rise

Flukes in the air at West Compton road

Fire me flares on the ridge

Harpoon the Right Whale turning left at the hospital

Let's moor up here for a smidge

They like their tonguing in Bowlish

They talk in tongues down in Darshill

In Longbridge many sailors are Polish

They swig rum from the bottle on Tipcote hill

Let's tack into the wind past the Viaduct

The Whale is towing us North

We've been sailors since before the empire sucked

The British sure had a good few ships put forth

And many a sailor came from the Mendips

Many from the coast of course

But they hew down the oak trees to build Galleons

And Spanish bulleons crossed the atlantic in force

Wooly jumpers from Shepton hit the high seas

And they were exported on fast clippers to India

Jumping woolies wished they were on board them

But they had to grow more wool on them first

The day we went to catch the whale

Oh the ropes were singing in our hands

The soap suds were a rubbing

Upon the decks with our arms and hands

The planks and boards a scrubbing

Gleaming were the gunwales

Taught strung our bright sails

On that morning it was all aboard

The day we went to catch a whale

Oh laddie, bet your britches daddy

Get harpoon and fork or spoon

We're off to land a baddy

Oh Mammy, you sent him off your Sammy

Now he's aboard with a scope and swore he spied a tail

The day we went to catch the whale

As we put out the salty locks

Of seaweed slapped our faces

The flow tide from the Bristol docks

Put us through our paces

Then just between Flatholm and Steepholm

We saw the spraying traces

Of Whale flukes like Royal Dukes

Off to see the races

Oh laddie, bet your britches daddy

Get harpoon and fork or spoon

We're off to land a baddy

Oh Mammy, you sent him off your sonny

Now he's aboard with a scope and swore he spied a tail

We'll never got bored as the seagulls soared

The day we went to catch the whale

As we approached the whales broached

A certain conversation

They gave forth their spume and froth

Like every whale nation

But our boats answered back in a likewise forthright manner

And towed the line of harpoon twine

And rowed out to meet them tongs and hammer

Oh laddie, bet your britches daddy

Get harpoon and fork or spoon we're off to land a baddy

Upon the deck we craned our necks to be first to spy a tail

It all was all aboard, then sally forth

the day we went to catch a whale

The first mate threw his harpoon screw

And it skewered itself in

The Right whale's side but he couldn't abide

The whaleman's avaricious grin

The whale came in, the whale went out

It dove down and pulled us about

The whale went out and it came back in

The day we went to catch a whale

Back and forth the whale fought

In and out the harbour

Never better a whale man's sport

Than for something he must labour

Coming round the headland coming up the leas

We were nearly in Newfoundland

By the time he began to wheeze

Down he dove like a Jove

Then like a Jupiter ascending

He came back up and stove-in

our hull as if to him offending

The captain hopped upon his toes

The first mate danced a jig

To think of all the damaged blows

done to his precious rig

But the devilish whale never left the water

so we never did the tonguing and slaughter

But he beat his tail like a gale 

The day we went to catch a whale

Oh laddie, bet your britches daddy

Get harpoon and fork or spoon

We're off to land a baddy

Oh Mammy, you sent him off your Sammy

Now he's aboard with a scope and swore he spied a tail

We'll never get bored as the seagulls soared

The day we went to catch the whale

He towed us back to Bristol docks

And round the rocks of Portishead

In ebb tide we nearly died upon the estuary bed

But the flood of new blood lifted us from our slumber

The whale now freed from seaweed towed on his lumber

Upon the pier, a crowd appeared to cheer us on our return

Seeing our sorry manner they took down their banner to burn

The whales eye did seem to spy our state of poor appraisal

And enjoyed how he had toyed with us by his fierce assail

But his was a tale of a fluke not a fail, for safe back home we'd sailed

And no one railed but drank deep his ale

They day we went to catch the whale

Oh laddie, bet your britches daddy

Get harpoon and fork or spoon

We're off to land a baddy

Oh Mammy, you sent him off your Sammy

Now he's aboard with a scope and swore he spied a tail

We'll never get bored as the seagulls soared

The day we went to catch the whale