The Pirates of the Peninsula

In days of old, anti-social seafarers occasionally sought to supplement their incomes with odds and ends taken from protesting merchant ships. Little inconsequential items like money, jewelry, clothing … just about any odd or end that would add a little to their retirement fund. These “pirates”, as they were affectionately called, developed their own abbreviated alphabet (needing only the letters “I” and “R” … usually pronounced “Aye” and “Arrggggh”) and a quaint little repertoire of songs. They were sometimes songs of love, sometimes of travel, but most frequently having to do with their love of the sea and their disinclination to do an honest day’s work.

The Doorway Singers, while shying away from the more rambunctious elements of buccaneering, have crafted a program of music, all with the tang of sea water and the roving life. Join in with Blow the Man Down, Oh You New York Girls, Rolling Sailor, The Water is Wide, South Australia, Keeper of the Eddystone Light, The Chivalrous Shark, Fiddler’s Green, New Bedford Whalers and more contemporary numbers like Listen to the Leadsman Sing and Lord Nelson. Come buckle your swash and skipper a scupper or two in a program sure to make you want to slip the mooring lines and take to the high seas.