Schooner Fare | For The Times

OGR 8909

Released 1993

Executive producers: Joel R. Feidelman, Eleanor G. Hillegeist, Cheryl C. Kagan, Harold I. Steinberg and Peter B. Steinberg
Produced by: Schooner Fare
Schooner Fare is:
Steve Romanoff--vocals, six- and twelve-string guitar and five-string banjo
Chuck Romanoff--vocals, twelve-string guitar and four-string banjo
Tom Rowe--vocals, bass and whistles
Additional musicians:
Fiddle--Greg Boardman
Percussion--Jeff Reynolds
Keyboard--Don Campbell
Recorded at: Apple Valley Studio, Auburn, Maine.
Recording engineers: Tom Rowe, Dave Rowe, Russ Rowe
Mix engineer: Tom Rowe
Digital editing engineer: Michael McInnis
Cover photo: Nina Fuller Carter
Graphic design and layout: Jenny Adams/Skunk Hollow Design, South Paris, Maine
Special Thanks to: Penny Cary, Russ Rowe, Ma Rowe and Jenny Adams, the able folks who keep this all together.
Song List

TOO FUNKY FOR THE FOLKIES
(Too Folkie for the Times)
Steve Romanoff
© 1993

When I was just a lad of ten my mother said to me,
There's nothing like the singing of a song to set you free;
There's nothing like the loving that you're givin' in a song;
There's nothing like the magic when the folks all sing along.

So I took her for her wisdom and I took it on the road,
And for more than twenty years or so I played the best I know
To folks in towns and cities all across the countryside;
Dispelling rumors someone spread that folk music had died.
  But now I'm too fun for the folkies, but too folkie for the Times,
  I don't think I will change my music just to change their minds.
  I'd rather kiss success goodbye than kiss the right behinds;
  And be too funky for the folkies and too folkie for the Times.

Well I got to know the business and I got to know the ropes;
And I got to know the geniuses and got to know the dopes
I know the oxymorons who perpetuate the joke
That there is something known in music as the "cutting edge of folk."
Yes there's something known in music as the "cutting edge of folk."

Well I've heard of drive-through parking and I've heard of jumbo shrimp.
I've heard of outlet entrances and boats made of cement.
There's cold soup and hot chili and skunks without a scent;
But if folk has got a cutting edge then I'm the President.
Yes if folk has got a cutting edge then I'm the President.


THE BROOME O' THE COWDENKNOWES
Trad. Arr. G. Romanoff, S. Romanoff, T. Rowe

  Oh, the broome, the bonnie, bonnie broome,
  The broome o' the Cowdenknowes.
  Fain would I be in the north country
  Herding her father's ewes.

How blythe each morn was I to see
My love come o'er the hill.
She skipped the byrne and ran to me,
I met her with goodwill.

She neither wanted ewes nor land
While the flock near us lay.
She gathered in the sheep by night
And cheered me all the day.

Hard fate that I should banished be
Gang o'er lee and moor.
Because I loved the fairest lass
That ever yet was born.

Adieu ye Cowdenknowes, adieu.
Farewell all pleasures there.
To wander by her side again
Is all I crave or care.


QUEBECOIS
Tom Rowe
© 1993

My name is Levesque, I'm a son of Quebec,
I'm a farmer and a Frenchman by birth.
I am used to hard work and the sun on my neck
And I raised what I could from the earth.
But now I'm a weaver in some rich man's mill,
Making blankets to earn a week's pay;
And it's six days a week, dawn to dark, in this hell,
But I'm goin' back home come someday.

I'm Giselle Corriveau and I'm joining my beau
In the spring when the log drive is through.
He's a woodsman you know, and I do love him so,
And for him there's not much I won't do.
So I sweat all day long in this shoe factory
To put a few dollars away
To save toward a farm in our own country,
'Cause we're goin' back home come someday.

  It is work, it is family, it's church, it is God,
  (C'est le travail, c'est la famille, c'est l'Eglise, c'est Dieu)
  It is why we came here to this land,
  To make a new life and be what we are--
  The proud and the strong Quebecois,
  The proud and the strong Quebecois.

I'm Gerard Fournier and I cut wood all day.
In the spring I am taking a wife.
We'll go back to the land, it's our forefathers' way,
To nurture the earth is our life.
And on Saturday nights we will dance and we'll sing,
Raise a glass to our family and friends,
And it's Sunday to church and the solace it brings,
And on Monday we'll start once again.

Oh, we are the folk who quietly toil,
In this new land of hope we have found
In the woods, on the sea, in the hard, rocky soil,
In the factories that clutter the towns.
And we raised up cathedrals to the glory of God,
They were built of our blood and our tears.
And we made it through hard times and hunger and flood,
And we'll be here for thousands of years.


FREEBORN MAN
Ewan MacColl (Stormking Music Co., P.R.S.)

I'm a freeborn man of the travelin' people;
Got no fixed abode, with nomads I am numbered.
Country lanes and byways were always my ways;
I've never fancied bein' longer.

Oh, we knew the woods and the restin' places;
And the small birds sang when winter days were over.
Then we'd pack our load and be on the road
Those were good old days for a rover.

There was open ground where a man could linger
For a week or two, for time was not our master.
Then away you'd jog with your horse and dog,
Nice and easy, no need to go faster.

Well, I've known life hard and I've known it easy;
And I've cursed the life when winter's days were dawning;
But I've laughed and sung through the whole night long;
Seen the summer sunrise in the morning.

All you freeborn men of the travelin' people
Every tinker, rolling stone, or gypsy rover;
Winds of change are blowin', old ways are going;
Your travelin' days will soon be over.
Your travelin' days will soon be over.


FOURTEEN-NINETY-ONE
Steve Romanoff
© 1993

We wept with the wind and the rain in our eyes
We read the stars and the moon
We learned to climb from the clouds in the sky
We learned to laugh from the loon
We prayed to the wood with the wolf and the deer
We learned when to grow with the sun
We heard the songs only silence can hear
And the year was 1491

The wind brought the wonder of wings from the east
The stars brought the men in canoes
The men brought the thunder of prayers and the priest
Their blades felled the pine and the spruce
We prayed to the wood with the wolf and the deer
We prayed to the birch and the yew
We danced all the dances of freedom and fear
And the year was 1492


CHESAPEAKE MORNING
Steve Romanoff
© 1990

  Wake up, it's a Chesapeake morning!
  Have you ever seen something so new?
  Wake up, it's a Chesapeake mornin',
  There's so much we've been meanin' to do,
  So wake up, it's a Chesapeake mornin',
  Let's tell all of the neighborhood too,
  Wake up to this Chesapeake mornin',
  And if we see the whole mornin' through,
  We'll wake up to more Chesapeake mornin's
  And see all of our Chesapeake daydreams come true.

From the Cumberland hills to Solomon's shore
There's a Chesapeake sunrise outside your front door;
And its promise will wake you like never before.
Can you hear the alarm 'cause it's time toÉ

  Chorus

We could work through the cities and farms on our way
To where the Òbeautiful swimmersÓ and waterbirds play;
'Til there's nothin' at all between us and the Bay.
It's so good we decided today toÉ

  Chorus

* "Beautiful swimmers" are the Chesapeake blue crabs.


SCUTTLEBUTT
Chuck Romanoff
© 1993

See the burly longshoreman, showing off his biceps,
Heavin' and a'haulin' mighty freighters in and out.
All of the townfolk think he's quite a guy, 'cept
He don't lift a finger to help around the house.

  Scuttlebutt! Ain't it a shame?
  Nobody knows. Nobody's to blame.
  The truth ain't pretty. I think you'll agree. Just
  Don't ya tell nobody that you heard it from me.

Do you see the dandy yachtsman, posing at the wheel,
The picture of a regular marina buccaneer?
But he doesn't know his rudder from his keel.
It's a jolly good job he doesn't ever leave the pier.

Yonder is a fisherman, wading in a brook
On a weekend with the fellas, feelin' wild and free--
But the bold desperado's afraid to bait the hook
He says "Will one of you people please do this for me?"

Listen to the folk singer, feelin' kinda jaunty,
Singin' out the chorus of a ballad sublime.
He's a three-chord-wonder, thinks he's Belafonte
You know he's gonna bore us with "one more time."

Over and over, day after day
Comin' and a'goin' like ever before,
Gossip is so ugly, try as you may
It comes innuendo and out of your door.


NORLAND WIND
Trad. Arr. G. Romanoff, S. Romanoff, T. Rowe

Tell me what was on yer road, ye roarin' norland wind,
As ye cam' blowin' frae the north that's never frae ma mind.
My feet they've traveled England, but I'm deein' for the north.
Oh, man, I saw the siller tide rin up the Firth o' Forth.

Ay wind I ken them weel enough and fund them fa an rise,
An frae the fields o' creepin' mist on yonder shore that lies.
But tell me as you pass them by what saw ye on yer way.
Oh, man, I roch the rovin' gulls that sail abin the Tay.

But saw ye nothin' leein' wind, afore ye come tae Fife?
Fir there's muckle lyin' yon the Tay that's mair tae me than life.
Ay, man, I swept the Angus braes that ye hav'nae trod fir years.
Oh, wind, whar gae a hameless loon that cannae see fir tears?

And far above the Angus straths I heard the wild geese flee.
A lang, lang skene o' beatin' wings wi' their heads towards the sea,
An' ay their roarin' voices trailed ahint them on the air.
Oh, wind, hae mercy, haud yir whisht, fir I darnae listen mair.


RODDY McCORLEY
Trad. Arr. G. Romanoff, S. Romanoff, T. Rowe

Oh, see the fleet foot hosts of men
Who speed with faces wan,
From farmstead and from thresher's cot
Along the banks of Ban.
They come with vengeance in their eyes,
Too late, too late are they,
As young Roddy McCorley goes to die
On the bridge of Toome today.

Up the narrow street he stepped
Smilin' proud and young
About the hemp rope on his neck
The golden ringlets clung
There's never a tear in his blue eyes
Both bright and proud are they,
As young Roddy McCorley goes to die
On the bridge of Toome today.

Oh, when he last stepped up that street,
His shining pike in hand,
Around him marched in grim array
A stalwart, earnest band.
For Antrim town, for Antrim town
He led them to the fray,
As young Roddy McCorley goes to die
On the bridge of Toome today.

Oh, never a one of all your dead
More bravely fell in fray,
Than he who marches to his fate
On the bridge of Toome today.
True to the last, true to the last,
He treads the upward way,
As young Roddy McCorley goes to die
On the bridge of Toome today.


LOVE SONG
Steve Romanoff
© 1993

I'm in love it seems
Everything I'm living once was in my dreams,
All is well, I can tell,
I'm in love, it seems.
I'm in love I know,

Every feeling that I have for you I show,
All is fair, I declare,
I'm in love I know.
I'm in love for good,
I'd give myself a reason not to if I could,
I can try, but can't deny,
I'm in love for good.

I'm in love with you,
It's as simple as this silly song for me to do,
Now stars above, got me thinking of,
How I'm in love with you.