“Waitin’ for Moby to Show”
Sung to the tune of “Wellerman“
There once was a ship that put to sea
With a belly o’ men on a whaling spree
There’s some up top and some below
Just waitin’ for Moby to show (Huh!)
Yo Ho, let the big beast come
He’ll be our prize, that scurvy scum
Then, oh, I will ever keep mum
We’ll take his oil and go
Three weeks to sea and naught was seen
The yearn for the lassies was burnin’ keen
The captain called all hands and swore
Ye best all wait ’til shore (Hah!)
Yo Ho, let the big beast come
He’ll be our prize, that scurvy scum
Then, oh, I will ever keep mum
We’ll take his oil and go
One night the masthead lookout cried
“Big one’s a-comin’ on up ‘long side!”
So rouse the men up to the deck
then down to whaleboats low (Huh!)
Yo Ho, let the big beast come
He’ll be our prize, that scurvy scum
Then, oh, I will ever keep mum
We’ll take his oil and go
He blew so close they felt his spray
The rowers circled round their prey
And when the harpoon’s cast away
He’ll take that ship in tow (Huh!)
Yo Ho, let the big beast come
He’ll be our prize, that scurvy scum
Then, oh, I will ever keep mum
We’ll take his oil and go
This tale gets long if I tell more
If I tell the gore, I fear ye’ll snore
We drained his riches, we’re still poor
That’s all ye need to know (Hah!)
Yo Ho, let the big beast come
He’ll be our prize, that scurvy scum
Then, oh, I will ever keep mum
We’ll take his oil and go
Yo Ho, let the big beast come
He’ll be our prize, that scurvy scum
Then, oh, I will ever keep mum
But I kept some oil, ye know…
This week, Frank’s challenge was: “Write a sea shanty“.
I learned a TON. Shanties have gone viral on TikTok (kids will watch anything, apparently), so I picked one on which to model my shanty (YouTube above). I decided to stick with the whaling theme and did some research. FASCINATING.
Anyway – enjoy! If you’re game, try to read/sing along my words to the Wellerman recording, It’s fun. And this particular YouTube link will give you THREE HOURS to get it right. 🙂
About #FFFocus:
Frank Chloupek holds a PhD in Physics from The Ohio State University. We have been friends since our undergraduate days at Michigan State University over 30 years ago.
Frank hates poetry
(except for any and all Limericks about a certain boy from Nantucket).
He provides challenges, topics, themes, rules to guide whatever gets put together on Fridays.
If you would like to join the weekly challenge, feel free! Just reference “Frank’s Friday Focus” (#FFFocus) on your own page, provide a pingback (paste the URL link someplace in your post) to this page, and copy/paste the link to your entry into the comment section below.
Thanks, and have fun!
defying atrophy 