Lyrics to Red Diesel by Steve Knightley

[[70521]]

As a huge fan of Show of Hands I thought this was topical.

Red Diesel:

Terry always puts red diesel in his tank
Rather be paid in cash or kind
Keeps his money in his pocket and never in a bank
Writes all his records in his mind

He's got a still in the back of a shed
He'll brew you up some vintage country wine
Just half a glass could raise the dead
I like to think Terry is a friend of mine
I like to think Terry is a friend of mine

Never seen a car he could not mend
His yard is full of his machines
One night in the dark I didn't make the bend
And Terry was the first one on the scene

With hands as rough as a farm dogs paw
His fingers grip yours as tight as a wrench
Later in the bar said there ought to be a law
Keeping out the yuppies and the grockles (and the French)

Terry will hold the line
Terry would never run
In uniform he's a hero
On the terraces he's scum

Six years in the army five months in jail
Four years on the road driving bands
Says he sang a folk song once but he didn't inhale
And what do townies know about living on the land

That's why he always puts red diesel in his tank
And he'd rather be paid in cash and kind
Keeps his money in his pocken never in a bank
I like to think Terry is a friend of mine
We all like to think Terry is a friend
I like to think Terry is a friend

 

[DaveRo]

Yes, I'm not sure about the relevance to boats, but I'm sure we all recognise Terry in his yard surrounded by half-dismantled engines.

I found this post on Mudcat about this and similar songs (from this thread).

The only modern song I can think of mentioning a yacht is from Richard Thompson:

I sailed my boat into New Orleans harbour
Tied up at the jetty, as bold as you please
With a half-ton of charlie built in to the bulkhead
Right under the noses of all them police

 

[Twister_Ken]

You could go with Josh Ritter, Another New World:

The leading lights of the age all wondered amongst
themselves what I would do next
After all that I'd found in my travels around
the world was there anything else left?
"Gentlemen", I said, "I've studied the maps"
"And if what I'm thinking is right"
"There's another new world at the top of the world"
"For whoever can break through the ice"

I looked round the room in that way I once had
and I saw that they wanted belief
So I said "All I've got are my guts and my God"
then I paused,"and the Annabelle Lee"
Oh the Annabelle Lee, I saw their eyes shine
the most beautiful ship in the sea
My Nina, My Pinta, My Santa Maria
My beautiful Annabelle Lee

That spring we set sail as the crowds waved from shore
and on board the crew waved their hats
But I never had family just the Annabelle Lee
so I didn't have cause to look back
I just set the course north and I studied the charts
and toward dark I drifted to sleep
and I dreamed of the fine deep harbor I'd find
past the ice for my Annabelle Lee

After that it got colder the world got quiet
it was never quite day or quite night
And the sea turned the color of sky turned the color
of sea turned the color of ice

'Til at last all around us was fastness
one vast glassy desert of arsenic white
And the waves that once lifted us
sifted instead into drifts against Annabelle's sides

The crew gathered closer at first for the comfort
but each morning would bring a new set
of the tracks in the snow leading over the edge
of the world 'til I was the only one left
After that it gets cloudy but it feels like I lay there
for days maybe for months
But Annabelle held me the two of us happy
just to think back on all we had done

We talked of the other worlds we'd discover
as she gave up her body to me
And as I chopped up her mainmast for timber
I told her of all that we still had to see
As the frost turned her moorings to nine-tail
and the wind lashed her sides in the cold
I burned her to keep me alive every night
in the lover's embrace of her hold

I won't call it rescue what brought me here back to
the old world to drink and decline
And to pretend that the search for another new world
was well-worth the burning of mine
But sometimes at night in my dreams comes the singing
of some known tropical bird
And I smile in my sleep thinking Annabelle Lee
has finally made it to another new world

 

[Coaster]

As a huge fan of Show of Hands...

Us too. We named our last boat Seven Days.

Will you be at Kensington Village Hall on 7 April?

 

[longjohnsilver]

Us too. We named our last boat Seven Days.

Will you be at Kensington Village Hall on 7 April?

And another fan here. The Dive was written about a friend of mine and his dad.

 

[mcframe]

The only modern song I can think of mentioning a yacht is from Richard Thompson:

http://www.dickgaughan.co.uk/discography/dsc-sail.html

_Sail On_ How we apply what we learn on the sea when we're on land...

Also includes a cover of _1952 Vincent Black Lightning_ and _Waist Deep In The Big Muddy_ especially for East Coast sailors.

(Yes, despite all that, I'm still young enough to keep a copy of _The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money_ onboard my boat, as a tribute to *that* 1987 song ;-)

 

[DaveRo]

Aye. I have Dick's CD.

While there are few modern songs about sailing there are, of course, many traditional ones. Spanish Ladies for example, part channel pilot, part guide for topmen:

Let go your shank painter, let go your cat stopper
Haul up your clewgarnets, let tacks and sheets fly!

Many of those still reading will know the Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens. Few will know The Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence's Idiot Son

A month it passed, then twa, then three,
Still nae land did they sight.
The crew tae the commander said,
"Yon GPS is shi te."