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On the Middle Ground

from Crossing the Line by Forty Degrees South

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Songs of the southern oceans - 22 tracks

    Comes in cardboard sleeve with printed 8 page booklet

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    Includes unlimited streaming of Crossing the Line via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Crossing the Line, Life Of Brine, Shore Leave, and Hazard, Hardship And Damned Little Pay. , and , .

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about

The Middle Ground refers to a whaling region between New Zealand, Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands. Don wrote the song on Norfolk while researching the many visits of American whaling ships between 1790 and 1907. Norfolk was popular for watering and recruiting, and safer than the sailor towns of Sydney, Hobart Town or Russell where captains risked losing their crew. Captains’ wives often stayed for prolonged periods, giving birth there and sharing their domestic skills with local women.

lyrics

I left New Bedford and my home
... Whaling in the South Pacific
After sperm whales we did roam
... On the Middle Ground
I left my family and my friends
The Californian now sends me
To the ocean’s furthest ends
... On the Middle Ground

From Rio south around Cape Horn …
New set sails in tatters torn …
The work is hard, the pleasures few
The water cold, the food is too
They feed us slush and call it stew …

From New Zealand’s icy gales …
Northward then we bend our sails …
Until we reach that rocky pile
The thought of it still makes me smile
Landed safe on Norfolk’s Isle …

Wettles there we took on board …
Salted beef and bacon stored …
Plaintain, porpai, figs a treat
Guava, corn and taties sweet
Better food you’ll never eat …

The captain’s wife has gone ashore …
We’ll be here a few weeks more …
Cruising in the winter sun
Right whales on their northern run
The largest bull tryed out twelve ton …

The Norfolk men have joined the crew …
Better boat steerers are few …
We say farewell to the girls on shore,
Their open smiles we’ll see no more
We’ll be gone three years or four
From the Middle Ground
From the Middle Ground

credits

from Crossing the Line, released July 9, 2021
Don Brian 2013
Tune: John Warner

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about

Forty Degrees South Sydney, Australia

A Sydney folk group known from 1988 for their powerful impact when singing unaccompanied traditional songs.

Strong individual singers, the interplay of their combined voices makes for a distinctive sound.

Sea shanties and other songs of maritime and industrial history and union songs feature large in their repertoire, songs with a robust quality that tell of real people, their lives and work.
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