Thousands Are Sailing

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I have a beautiful video for you today. I can't watch the damn thing without getting teary-eyed, but of course I'm a big pussy when it comes to this kind of stuff.

The video couples black & white immigration photos with a beautiful song by The Pogues called "Thousands Are Sailing"

It's the mid-1800s and ready or not . . . here come the Irish! Including my 8-year-old great-Grandma Farley who arrived alone in America because her Momma (my great-great grandma) died on the trip over and was buried at sea ("on a coffin ship I came here")

But it's also the early-1980s and ready or not . . . here come the Irish again! This time leaving, not because of a potato famine, but because of painfully high unemployment and homelessness ("We stepped hand in hand on Broadway/Like the first men on the moon").

Leave it to my man Shane MacGowan to be able to seamlessly stitch together into a wonderfully melodic quilt, the stories of several generations separated by as much as 130 years.

A gorgeous & timeless song about a beautiful & timeless story - and basic human desire - to be somewhere better, and to maybe someday call it "home."


Thousands Are Sailing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc1G7aCpSsI


Thousands Are Sailing
(S. MacGowan)


The island it is silent now
But the ghosts still haunt the waves
And the torch lights up a famished man
Who fortune could not save

Did you work upon the railroad
Did you rid the streets of crime
Were your dollars from the White House
Or were they from the five and dime

Did the old songs taunt or cheer you
And did they still make you cry
Did you count the months and years
Or did your teardrops quickly dry

Ah, no, says he, 'twas not to be
On a coffin ship I came here
And I never even got so far
That they could change my name

Thousands are sailing
Across the western ocean
To a land of opportunity
That some of them will never see
Fortune prevailing
Across the western ocean
Their bellies full
Their spirits free
They'll break the chains of poverty
And they'll dance

In Manhattan's desert twilight
In the death of afternoon
We stepped hand in hand on Broadway
Like the first men on the moon

And "The Blackbird" broke the silence
As you whistled it so sweet
And in Brendan Behan's footsteps
I danced up and down the street

Then we said goodnight to Broadway
Giving it our best regards
Tipped our hats to Mister Cohen
Dear old Times Square's favorite bard

Then we raised a glass to JFK
And a dozen more besides
When I got back to my empty room
I suppose I must have cried

Thousands are sailing
Again across the ocean
Where the hand of opportunity
Draws tickets in a lottery
Postcards we're mailing
Of sky-blue skies and oceans
From rooms the daylight never sees
Where lights don't glow on Christmas trees
But we dance to the music
And we dance

Thousands are sailing
Across the western ocean
Where the hand of opportunity
Draws tickets in a lottery
Where e'er we go, we celebrate
The land that makes us refugees
From fear of priests with empty plates
From guilt and weeping effigies
And we dance



[should you be desirous of obtaining an album by The Pogues, If I Should Fall From Grace With God comes with my highest recommendation, truly a "desert island" disc for me, followed by Rum, Sodomy, And The Lash, and several others]


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