The Lowestoft Boat (Edward Elgar)
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- (Posted 2023-10-12) CPDL #76285:
- Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2023-10-12). Score information: Letter, 16 pages, 640 kB Copyright: Personal
- Edition notes:
General Information
Title: The Lowestoft Boat
Composer: Edward Elgar
Lyricist: Rudyard Kipling
Number of voices: 4vv Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong
Language: English
Instruments: Piano
First published: 1918 Enoch & Sons
Description: The Fringes of the Fleet, No. 1
In 1915, The Daily Telegraph commissioned Rudyard Kipling to write articles on aspects of the defense of the nation on the sea. They were subsequently published in a booklet titled “The Fringes of the Fleet”. Each section was prefaced by a short poem. In 1916 Lord Charles Beresford asked Elgar to set of some of the verses as songs. Elgar chose to set four of them as a song-cycle, originally for four men’s voices. They were quite popular and Elgar re-wrote them for mixed voices.
External websites:
Original text and translations
English text
The Lowestoft Boat
(East Coast Patrols)
In Lowestoft a boat was laid,
Mark well what I do say!
And she was built for the herring trade,
But she has gone a-rovin’, a-rovin’, a-rovin’,
The Lord knows where!
They gave her Government coal to burn,
And a Q. F. gun at bow and stern,
And sent her out a-rovin’, etc.
Her skipper was mate of a bucko ship
Which always killed one man per trip,
So he is used to rovin’, etc.
Her mate was skipper of a chapel in Wales,
And so he ^ights in topper and tails—
Religi-ous tho’ rovin’, etc.
Her engineer is ^ifty-eight,
So he’s prepared to meet his fate,
Which ain’t unlikely rovin’, etc.
Her leading-stoker’s seventeen,
So he don’t know what the Judgments mean,
Unless he cops ’em rovin’, etc.
Her cook was chef in the Lost Dogs’ Home,
Mark well what I do say!
And I’m sorry for Fritz when they all come
A-rovin’, a-rovin’, a-roarin’ and a-rovin’,
Round the North Sea rovin’,
The Lord knows where!