"The Mariner's Art" by Night Hawk 240

The Mariner's Art

Night Hawk 240

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True stories of ship wrecks and rescues on the Great Lakes.

ballads bluegrass classic country hillbilly western cowboy

Night Hawk 240

Old time classic country, western cowboy songs, and bluegrass. Back porch style, old timey pickin' for clogging, square dancing, or just listening.

Night Hawk Bluegrass & Western Tumble Weed Tammy and Santa Fe Steve work together to bring back nostalgic western and bluegrass tunes from the past as well as new songs of their own with close ties to the past. Tumble Weed Tammy By day Tumble Weed is the kitchen administrator and manager of the kitchen at the county hoosegow. By night she plays bass fiddle, bass guitar and contributes vocals to the group. Tammy enjoys horseback riding (trail riding) and fitness and exercise when not slingin' hash or pickin' the bass. Santa Fe Steve Santa Fe hung up his badge and gun after 25 years of law man duty, keeping the peace in the dusty streets of Gladwin. When not playing Guitar, Banjo, Mandolin, or singing Santa Fe is the chief operator of a wireless telegraph station (K8BZ) on the ham radio frequencies of the air waives.

Song Info

Genre

Country • Bluegrass

Charts

Peak #132

Peak in subgenre #10

Author

Steve Wuelfing

Rights

2002 Steve Wuelfing

Uploaded

November 21, 2005

Track Files

MP3

MP3 3.8 MB • 128 kbps • 4:11

Story behind the song

True stories of ship wrecks in the Great lakes.  The Monarch wrecked in Lake Superior and survivors were rescued by a light house keeper who rowed 3 miles in a gail to investigate their signal light.  The Calument ran aground in a gale in Lake Michigan on Thanksgiving Day and all 18 crew members were rescued by members of a life saving station (pre coast guard) at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

Lyrics

In a time before truckers when fathers and mothers
Depended on mariners true
To deliver the wares for their daily affairs
Bless the captain and sailors and crew

For the stoves and the dishes, a child's Christmas wishes
The plows and the ax handles too
Brought o'er the Great Lakes for the villagers sakes
On the shippers great highways of blue

CHORUS:
Many others took part in the mariners art
To the comfort of sailors and wives
Let their stories be told like the sailors of old
For they saved many a crewmen their lives

In the light keepers towers spent long lonely hours
From loved ones forever apart
While keeping the light in the darkness of night
Like the beat of a mariners heart

One Saturday night from the Passage Isle Light
The keeper a signal did hale
Rowed he for the strangers ignoring the dangers
Three miles in Superior's gale

CHORUS:
The Monarch struck ground on the rocks in the sound
And the crewmen faced freezing and dread
When the rescuers came, Oh the light keepers name
Became lost to the saved and the dead

On Thanksgiving day when the Calumet lay 
Hard aground down near Evanston town
University's crew of the life savers knew
That the Calumet was going down

They heaved to the oars as they pushed from the shore
With a twenty foot sea in the path
'til the last man's brought off or the Calumets lost
They would challenge Lake Michigan's wrath

CHORUS:
And the eighteen man crew of the Calumet knew
That the rescuers changes were poor
Through the snow's blinding white they thought not of their plight
'til the last man was safely ashore 

Now the light keepers task is a thing of the past
Their duties replaced by machines
And the life savers too have all faded from view
Their stations no more to be seen

But in times long ago when the sailors of old
Dead reckoned their course to be true
Kept watch for the light in the darkness of night
And the life savers courage they knew

CHORUS:
So remember them all who rose to the call
To save from a watery fate
Each hand for the other, as brother to brother
When the lakes charged their toll for the freight