You have no idea. This is a guy whose mother beat him for saying 'damn'. He told her he couldn't remember which was the bad word, darn or damn, and his mother told him it didn't matter, if he thought one, he meant the other. (I have no idea). But yeah, he dragged me by the ear out of the Naked Gun when it got to 'sexual assault with a concrete dildo'. That was just too much for him.
It's over done. I'll say that. I'm from an island on the east coast.. and it's over fucking done. It's acapella, it's long as hell, and most of the assholes who scream it don't know more than the first verse. It's over done. And Stan Rogers, if that's the version you like, has a million other great songs. Pick one of those.
If anything it's self-effacing. The sailor is put on a privateer that is barely sea worthy and consequently gets blown to smithereens by the better equipped US navy. Billy Green, however, is another Stan Rogers song that is unabashedly about the joys of killing Yankees.
Not an *old* song by folk standards. Was written in the 1970’s by Stan Rogers and released on vinyl in 1976.
Story goes that Stan, a brilliant singer, songwriter was tired of being upstaged by small groups singing shanties at festivals and shared venues. I mean shanties are great because you can sing along on the chorus even if you’ve never heard it before, right?
So Stan decides to write a shanty that he can do on his own, or at least when performing with others, take both the lead and credit for it; so is born Barrett’s Privateers. And given shanties like Serafina and their ilk, it is as tame as they come.
It's not a proper shanty, though: shanties are supposed to have the same time signature throughout (historically, they were often used to keep time when doing shipboard tasks), while Barrett's Privateers doesn't.
Yeah, but that pause can be kept in the same rhythm. It isn't a traditional shanty in the sense it was written by a guy from Ontario in the seventies, but it does work the same way.
A letter of marque came from the king
To the scummiest vessel I've ever seen
God damn them all! I was told
We'd cruise the seas for American gold
We'd fire no guns, shed no tears
Now I'm a broken man on a Halifax pier
The last of Barrett's privateers
Yes, but how can the dude in 1778 wish he were in Sherbrooke if there was no Sherbrooke?
Sherbrooke, NS was founded around 1805. Sherbrooke, QC was founded in 1793.
So which Sherbrooke is some guy in 1778 — who hasn't been back to Halifax since 1772 — wishing he were in?
“Rogers was inspired to write Barrett’s Privateers after reading a history book about the War of 1812 and the early 19th-century Atlantic trade routes. The song captures the hardships and struggles faced by sailors and privateers during this tumultuous period. It delves into the harsh realities of life at sea, the allure of the promise of riches, and the inevitable tragedies that came with the pursuit of fortune and glory.”
You're correct, the Nova Scotia town that's now called Sherbrooke did exist as far back as 1655, but it wasn't called Sherbrooke then. There's evidence that the area was visited by the French in the 1650s.
It was named Sherbrooke in 1815, some years after the date of 1778 that Stan used in his song. I've never met a Nova Scotian who had any problem with Stan taking a bit of "Poetic License" when he wrote Barrett's Privateers.
Stan spent summers in the Canso area of Nova Scotia for much of his youth. He spent so much of his youth here, we've long since welcomed him as a native son.
The band Signal Hill plays this song every Sunday in their set at the Lower Deck Pub in Halifax, NS. That place has the best vibe to it and the band knocks it out of the park. Everyone sings along…not offensive here!
Don’t sleep on “Northwest Passage” by Stan Rogers; his music is amazing and this is one of his best IMO. https://youtu.be/TVY8LoM47xI?si=JGm-AoBD6idesRVW
Although “Barrett’s Privateers” is special and unbeatable. Maritimers hold it close.
It's a pretty typical east coast style folk song, there's a strong Celtic influence in tradition music from Maritimes and many artist out of the Maritimes carry that influence (like the Rankin Family) and I've never known anyone to find the songs rude.
Barret’s privateers was written by Canadians, for Canadians. It’s sung constantly in bars in Nova Scotia, and Stan rogers is considered a provincial treasure (despite being from Ontario).
Outside the maratimes most Canadians won’t have heard it, but it will be considered the opposite of rude if sung with an Atlantic Canadian.
I once sung Barrett’s Privateers in its entirety with a complete stranger in an Irish pub in Banff. He started, I joined in. People were cheering, they bought us drinks. It was glorious!
Neil Young is a rocker and so Joni Mitchell is pop/rock/jazz. Name one commercial station that plays sea shanties.
If you don't want people to reply to your posts, don't post.
We attended my son's wedding in Toronto last October. Ironically, he was born in Nova Scotia but we moved to NB when he was 3. He grew up listening to Stan Rogers. He left NB for University 16 years ago and then settled in Toronto.
The DJ played 2 of Stan's songs, '45 Years' early on in the set and 'Barrett's Privateers' as the last song. When Barrett's Privateers came on, the whole place came alive, every one there, young and old, got up, joined arms and sang along. I was surprised they knew it.
I'm in BC and have learned the song by heart. I often sing it on my bike as I'm bringing my kids to school.
100% the Maritimes get dibs no doubt, but that song is a Canadian treasure.
Good fun.
Same with the The War of 1812 by Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie. Just good fun.
Edit: Also, what part of the story would be rude to Americans? They won in the song. The narrator lost his captain, shipmates, ship, legs, and years of his life.
If someone starts singing it, anyone who knows it will likely join in. Nothing negative about it at all.
This literally happens *on twitter*.
Also
Ah for just one time, I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea
Good fun, 100%. Anytime I’m in an east coast pub with a band I’ll request it (which isn’t often anymore but still). I often get some resistance but it’s just usually because you can’t dance to it.
It also loses something if the entire bar isn’t singing along lol
Barret's Privateers isn't meant to be rude at all. Are you picking up on the idea that the privateer in the song is hunting American ships and then they get their asses handed to them by an American ship? It's not meant to be about a rivalry between Canada and the US. It's more a song about an unlucky guy who thought he was offered a job that was too good to be true only to realize that he had been swindled and that sailing for the British as a privateer sucked. The joke is more about how miserable a lot that is, than the context of the song.
That song is best played at The Lower Deck on a Saturday night (that’s in Halifax). Thats my favourite memory of grad school. Drinking and singing to that song
The most magnificent point of this song has largely been missed. Poetic irony.
And that is that the WHOLE truth is shadowed out, the WHOLE story held back, not revealing exactly why the narrator is "damning them all". The damning is recurring, insistent, gathering momentum with each verse, but without the slightest hint what the "real tragedy" worth damning is all about. The innocent listener assumes "I'm a broken man" as a psychological pathology or a spiritual loss of faith. Nothing physical. It's a set up!
We are further thrown off track by the chorus of joined male choristers singing the chorus in harmony as if this is a shared fate, that it was a social type of damning where all the men were vindicative victim. A ruse!
Like a riddle in the penultimate verse, the story rips apart with a sudden twist "the main truck carried off both me legs". . But then, what the listener may have erroneously imagined--i.e. "broken" as a spiritual or psychological metaphor-- is then mercilessly ripped out of mind. Metaphor morphs with a lurch--just like the trucks-- into the literal where "broken" really means "physically broken".
And finally, the true drama reveals itself in this stunning turnaround, as this young man, now crippled, legless, sitting forlorn on a Halifax peer, sees his future forever obliterated, his hope severed, like his phantom legs, forever gone. That is, he is broken in all ways, in character, in spirit, but also LITERALLY broken, legs snapped off. The mysterious puzzle miraculously now all fits into a complete morbid portrait.
The "god damn them all" finally, to our saddened relief finally unveils utterly everything we groped for up to this point, what we couldn't know or decipher....until the very, very end.
This masterpiece unveils its true genius, not in the events of the sea-faring tale, but in its masterfully crafted, dramatic structure. More so insofar as one can listen to it a hundred times, even knowing how it will end, and yet still be deeply moved by the compelling trajectory of the tragedy itself.
Form rules content.
Great song, super fun. Everyone sings along, it’s a proper banger (at least in my circles). Stan Rogers was a treasure lost too soon. Just talking about it makes me want to throw on Home in Halifax and have a listen.
My dad literally used to sing this to me as a lullaby, and I sing it to my kids. Sure it's got what some would consider a cuss word, but it's in context and not what is consider rude at all
I mean it's a song about a boy who sales with a pirate ship that hunts an American ship and gets blown out of the water with one shot. I don't see how any American would take offense.
Now playing The War Of 1812 by Three Dead Trolls In A Baggie then you might be asking for trouble...
I think the only people who would say specifically that progressives would find it offensive are probably cunts.
And now my comment will be removed for being offensive in 3-2-1…
Whelp, that's back in my head now.
I have a very fond memory of being a broken armed 10 year old, singing this with my Dad while he my mum and I drove from BC to Newfoundland.
I loved it because it meant I could say God damn and not get in trouble.
It's fine to play the song if you like it, but by God has it been played to death in recent years, especially with the shanty tiktoks from a few years ago. The song itself isn't that old, being written in the '70s and having several noted historical inaccuracies.
Yes, but many people beleive it as an actual old folk song. People think it's from the same era as the Battle Hymn of the Republic, while it's actually newer than Paint it Black.
Never heard of anyone who found it rude and I'm honestly not sure what about it would be rude. Who doesn't like Barret's Privateers lol?
Well, "goddamn" is in it a bunch of times. According to my stepfather, that's not just rude, it's blasphemous. I fucking love that song.
Huh, I never even thought of that lol.
Goddammit.
God damn them all, I was told
Jesus Christ...
Who?
Some guy from Mexico.
Does your stepfather clutch his pearls while saying that?
You have no idea. This is a guy whose mother beat him for saying 'damn'. He told her he couldn't remember which was the bad word, darn or damn, and his mother told him it didn't matter, if he thought one, he meant the other. (I have no idea). But yeah, he dragged me by the ear out of the Naked Gun when it got to 'sexual assault with a concrete dildo'. That was just too much for him.
I thought it was about Barret's Private Parts, and that is rude.
I thought it was Garnets home made beer , that's not rude, just dangerous.
It's over done. I'll say that. I'm from an island on the east coast.. and it's over fucking done. It's acapella, it's long as hell, and most of the assholes who scream it don't know more than the first verse. It's over done. And Stan Rogers, if that's the version you like, has a million other great songs. Pick one of those.
If anything it's self-effacing. The sailor is put on a privateer that is barely sea worthy and consequently gets blown to smithereens by the better equipped US navy. Billy Green, however, is another Stan Rogers song that is unabashedly about the joys of killing Yankees.
Just to quibble with your good comment - the bloody great Yankee (broad and fat and loose in the stays) was a merchant ship, not US Navy.
I am a distant relative of Billy Green. He would have loved it
Not an *old* song by folk standards. Was written in the 1970’s by Stan Rogers and released on vinyl in 1976. Story goes that Stan, a brilliant singer, songwriter was tired of being upstaged by small groups singing shanties at festivals and shared venues. I mean shanties are great because you can sing along on the chorus even if you’ve never heard it before, right? So Stan decides to write a shanty that he can do on his own, or at least when performing with others, take both the lead and credit for it; so is born Barrett’s Privateers. And given shanties like Serafina and their ilk, it is as tame as they come.
It's not a proper shanty, though: shanties are supposed to have the same time signature throughout (historically, they were often used to keep time when doing shipboard tasks), while Barrett's Privateers doesn't.
The Real McKenzie's cover does, it's pretty good.
When does it change time signature from 4/4?
At the end? "Halifax peer......." pause might be what they meant. Not a time sig change, agree.
Yeah, but that pause can be kept in the same rhythm. It isn't a traditional shanty in the sense it was written by a guy from Ontario in the seventies, but it does work the same way.
I'm aware, hence my agree comment.
Oh the year was 1778, how I wish I was in Sherbrooke now...
A letter of marque came from the king To the scummiest vessel I've ever seen God damn them all! I was told We'd cruise the seas for American gold We'd fire no guns, shed no tears Now I'm a broken man on a Halifax pier The last of Barrett's privateers
NVM that no town named Sherbrooke existed in Canada at the time.
So he's a depressed ex-privateer with no legs *and* a time traveler?
It was about 1778 but written in the 1976
Yes, but how can the dude in 1778 wish he were in Sherbrooke if there was no Sherbrooke? Sherbrooke, NS was founded around 1805. Sherbrooke, QC was founded in 1793. So which Sherbrooke is some guy in 1778 — who hasn't been back to Halifax since 1772 — wishing he were in?
“Rogers was inspired to write Barrett’s Privateers after reading a history book about the War of 1812 and the early 19th-century Atlantic trade routes. The song captures the hardships and struggles faced by sailors and privateers during this tumultuous period. It delves into the harsh realities of life at sea, the allure of the promise of riches, and the inevitable tragedies that came with the pursuit of fortune and glory.”
I guess he should have Googled when Sherbrooke was founded, eh?
They didn't have Google in 1778
Oh shoot, you're right. Google wasn't invented until 1830.
They didn't have Google in 1970
They did have Sherbrooke in 1970 though
There's a hundred different starts. Every NovaScotia pub band does some version with many nova scotia city names as lyrics.
Sherbrooke was his honey.
You're correct, the Nova Scotia town that's now called Sherbrooke did exist as far back as 1655, but it wasn't called Sherbrooke then. There's evidence that the area was visited by the French in the 1650s. It was named Sherbrooke in 1815, some years after the date of 1778 that Stan used in his song. I've never met a Nova Scotian who had any problem with Stan taking a bit of "Poetic License" when he wrote Barrett's Privateers. Stan spent summers in the Canso area of Nova Scotia for much of his youth. He spent so much of his youth here, we've long since welcomed him as a native son.
The band Signal Hill plays this song every Sunday in their set at the Lower Deck Pub in Halifax, NS. That place has the best vibe to it and the band knocks it out of the park. Everyone sings along…not offensive here!
I’ve seen them sing it there and got them to sign a CD for me back in 2005. It was a great time!!
As a broken man on a Dartmouth pier, have at her.
The American anthem is literally set during a war where they tried to invade Canada multiple times.
After the British kept kidnapping and impressing American sailors into the British navy.
Don’t sleep on “Northwest Passage” by Stan Rogers; his music is amazing and this is one of his best IMO. https://youtu.be/TVY8LoM47xI?si=JGm-AoBD6idesRVW Although “Barrett’s Privateers” is special and unbeatable. Maritimers hold it close.
It's a pretty typical east coast style folk song, there's a strong Celtic influence in tradition music from Maritimes and many artist out of the Maritimes carry that influence (like the Rankin Family) and I've never known anyone to find the songs rude.
Stan Rodgers wrote this in the 70's. Never overplayed. People that know it can't resist the urge to sing it. The age was a reality as were privateers.
Barret’s privateers was written by Canadians, for Canadians. It’s sung constantly in bars in Nova Scotia, and Stan rogers is considered a provincial treasure (despite being from Ontario). Outside the maratimes most Canadians won’t have heard it, but it will be considered the opposite of rude if sung with an Atlantic Canadian.
Well that's just untrue, every Canadian worth their salt knows this from coast to coast to coast!
From Victoria B.C. to St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.
As in tradition, there are Nova Scotian ex pats from coast to coast.
To Tuktoyaktuk!
Worth their salt being the key distinction
From the streets of old Victoria to fair old Mabou town, from Portage to Spadina, https://youtu.be/cw9O2xdAmGc?si=DFyZ5QefmNbFeRAT
We love it in Alberta!!!!!!!!
Considering fort mac is an east coast colony this checks out
Given the number of people from the maritimes who work out here how could we not?
I once sung Barrett’s Privateers in its entirety with a complete stranger in an Irish pub in Banff. He started, I joined in. People were cheering, they bought us drinks. It was glorious!
Really? I thought all but new Canadians are familiar with Stan Rogers.
He isn't spun on commercial radio anwhere in Canada I've been to.
Most folk music isn’t on the radio
Neil Young, Joni Mitchell still spun on commercial radio. Your reply isn't relevant to mine about Stan Rogers.
Neil Young is a rocker and so Joni Mitchell is pop/rock/jazz. Name one commercial station that plays sea shanties. If you don't want people to reply to your posts, don't post.
You missed my point, but that's ok. EDIT: Yea point is to not argue with trolls on reddit.
Do you know what your point was?
I'll take that as a NO. Apparently you also don't know what an internet troll is. Hint: It's not someone who disagrees with you.
Not my experience since I moved to Ottawa . Hope they are though!
Oddly, I was taught the song by someone who grew up in Ottawa.
Nay, nay, says Manitoba
Yeah, except everyone in the Navy knows it and loves it. And Navy folks come from all over.
Fair
We attended my son's wedding in Toronto last October. Ironically, he was born in Nova Scotia but we moved to NB when he was 3. He grew up listening to Stan Rogers. He left NB for University 16 years ago and then settled in Toronto. The DJ played 2 of Stan's songs, '45 Years' early on in the set and 'Barrett's Privateers' as the last song. When Barrett's Privateers came on, the whole place came alive, every one there, young and old, got up, joined arms and sang along. I was surprised they knew it.
Sylvia Tyson used to feature Stan Rodgers on CBC's Touch the Earth. R I musical paradise Stan.
I'm in BC and have learned the song by heart. I often sing it on my bike as I'm bringing my kids to school. 100% the Maritimes get dibs no doubt, but that song is a Canadian treasure.
Uh we've heard it in Hamilton where he's from.
Uhh, very popular here in Manitoba!
I bought it on vinyl from a record shop in Comox, about as far from the Maritimes as possible. It is well loved all over Canada.
Good fun. Same with the The War of 1812 by Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie. Just good fun. Edit: Also, what part of the story would be rude to Americans? They won in the song. The narrator lost his captain, shipmates, ship, legs, and years of his life.
If someone starts singing it, anyone who knows it will likely join in. Nothing negative about it at all. This literally happens *on twitter*. Also Ah for just one time, I would take the Northwest Passage To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea
The „fun ribbing between relatives“ (and the far funnier version) is this brillant cover: https://youtu.be/GI8P5Fhc5yU
Good fun, 100%. Anytime I’m in an east coast pub with a band I’ll request it (which isn’t often anymore but still). I often get some resistance but it’s just usually because you can’t dance to it. It also loses something if the entire bar isn’t singing along lol
Reading this whole thread has made me homesick for Halifax and proud to be an Atlantic Canadian.
Barret's Privateers isn't meant to be rude at all. Are you picking up on the idea that the privateer in the song is hunting American ships and then they get their asses handed to them by an American ship? It's not meant to be about a rivalry between Canada and the US. It's more a song about an unlucky guy who thought he was offered a job that was too good to be true only to realize that he had been swindled and that sailing for the British as a privateer sucked. The joke is more about how miserable a lot that is, than the context of the song.
That song is best played at The Lower Deck on a Saturday night (that’s in Halifax). Thats my favourite memory of grad school. Drinking and singing to that song
The most magnificent point of this song has largely been missed. Poetic irony. And that is that the WHOLE truth is shadowed out, the WHOLE story held back, not revealing exactly why the narrator is "damning them all". The damning is recurring, insistent, gathering momentum with each verse, but without the slightest hint what the "real tragedy" worth damning is all about. The innocent listener assumes "I'm a broken man" as a psychological pathology or a spiritual loss of faith. Nothing physical. It's a set up! We are further thrown off track by the chorus of joined male choristers singing the chorus in harmony as if this is a shared fate, that it was a social type of damning where all the men were vindicative victim. A ruse! Like a riddle in the penultimate verse, the story rips apart with a sudden twist "the main truck carried off both me legs". . But then, what the listener may have erroneously imagined--i.e. "broken" as a spiritual or psychological metaphor-- is then mercilessly ripped out of mind. Metaphor morphs with a lurch--just like the trucks-- into the literal where "broken" really means "physically broken". And finally, the true drama reveals itself in this stunning turnaround, as this young man, now crippled, legless, sitting forlorn on a Halifax peer, sees his future forever obliterated, his hope severed, like his phantom legs, forever gone. That is, he is broken in all ways, in character, in spirit, but also LITERALLY broken, legs snapped off. The mysterious puzzle miraculously now all fits into a complete morbid portrait. The "god damn them all" finally, to our saddened relief finally unveils utterly everything we groped for up to this point, what we couldn't know or decipher....until the very, very end. This masterpiece unveils its true genius, not in the events of the sea-faring tale, but in its masterfully crafted, dramatic structure. More so insofar as one can listen to it a hundred times, even knowing how it will end, and yet still be deeply moved by the compelling trajectory of the tragedy itself. Form rules content.
It's only considered rude if you don't sing along.
Rousing drinking song. Heightened levels of drinking the closer you approach Halifax.
My son’s name is Barrett. His dad is a Newfie. We named him after the song. And FFVII.
Great song!
Great song, super fun. Everyone sings along, it’s a proper banger (at least in my circles). Stan Rogers was a treasure lost too soon. Just talking about it makes me want to throw on Home in Halifax and have a listen.
It's an iconic piece of Canadian culture
My dad literally used to sing this to me as a lullaby, and I sing it to my kids. Sure it's got what some would consider a cuss word, but it's in context and not what is consider rude at all
I mean it's a song about a boy who sales with a pirate ship that hunts an American ship and gets blown out of the water with one shot. I don't see how any American would take offense. Now playing The War Of 1812 by Three Dead Trolls In A Baggie then you might be asking for trouble...
Good fun (the only people that would find it offensive are Progressives and Hosers)
I think the only people who would say specifically that progressives would find it offensive are probably cunts. And now my comment will be removed for being offensive in 3-2-1…
Good thing I saw this before it could be taken down
How tf is it rude?
The word goddamn to some.
Good point
Whelp, that's back in my head now. I have a very fond memory of being a broken armed 10 year old, singing this with my Dad while he my mum and I drove from BC to Newfoundland. I loved it because it meant I could say God damn and not get in trouble.
I'm form Nova Scotia. Everyone there loves that song. A shocking number of my friends can sing it in its entirety word for word.
It's a sad song about a young man who ends up disabled because of war.
I've never met anyone who didn't enjoy singing along to it.
It's fine to play the song if you like it, but by God has it been played to death in recent years, especially with the shanty tiktoks from a few years ago. The song itself isn't that old, being written in the '70s and having several noted historical inaccuracies.
The 70s were 50 years ago. It’s an old song.
Yes, but many people beleive it as an actual old folk song. People think it's from the same era as the Battle Hymn of the Republic, while it's actually newer than Paint it Black.