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Tales Of The Barbary

from Fear The Flames (Album) by Brian Stone

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about

Recently I was given a book charting the various exploits of piracy on the Mediterranean Barbary coast of Northern Africa. I was already writing this song about the early life of Jack Ward and quickly adapted it to reflect the tales recounted here. It tells the partly factual story of an unnamed Cornish smuggler persuaded to join the young Jack Ward to take a stolen ship to the Barbary and become pirates. Attempts to sell their first ill-gotten gains in previously welcoming Algiers were scuppered by another pirate who got there first and sank many of the local ships thus turning the local leader against the English. So our hero ends up in jail but Ward negotiates his release and they become the highly successful pirates of the legend.

Ewan P Stevens provides mandolin.

lyrics

Fill me with fine ale. I’ll tell y’a tall tale
How from Cawsand Bay I was led astray to a life under black sails As a smuggler life’s hard for a Cornish blaggard When a drunken cove offered treasure troves and riches without fail If I sailed to the Barbary.

Day after long day across the Biscay
And through the straights we waylaid freight headed east without delay
No luck in Algiers for our contraband gear
And as an English swain I was clapped in chains on pain of a grisly end
In a scurvy world if you offend

You will be keelhauled! It's one for the road.
One last rum for my condemned bones
And the whip cracks, walk the plank.
One last rum then it's down to Davy Jones

Not abandoned. Jack made a stand and
By a piece of eight and a twist of fate sprung from captivity
We hatched a bold plan to grow our fleet and expand
For our life afloat we need bigger boats on the high seas we’ll hold sway
Privateers on the Barbary!

But all this wealth and fine gold and riches untold
This Cornish lad despite felt sad and pined for his home county
So this life he’d forgo and set sail for Kernow
For a pirates hope it's avoid the rope I’ve no wish to meet that end
In a scurvy world if you offend

Keelhauled. One for the road. Sailed to the Barbary
Keelhauled. One for the road. Privateers on the Barbary
Keelhauled. One for the road. Tales of the Barbary
Keelhauled. One for the road.

credits

from Fear The Flames (Album), released April 29, 2022
Ewan P Stevens on mandolin

license

all rights reserved

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