I’ve just returned from Baja California, Mexico, on what I would probably say is the world’s best whale watching trip, all 12 days of it.
We were taking on the boat one night, and music came up…
So, oh Massive, what songs do we know that mention our whale and dolphin friends (specific species or just generally) in the lyrics and/or title?
If I may start with Yorkshire scamps Terrorvision, and one of their finest.
https://youtu.be/An59zXVEFFE
Songs that mention cetaceans…
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https://youtu.be/An59zXVEFFE
Blinking Youtube links…
The obvious one for me is Fred Neil’s Dolphins.
There are so many versions: Fred’s original, the first one I heard by Tim Buckley on Sefronia, It’s A Beautiful Day’s version on Marrying Maiden, Billy Bragg’s on an album whose name I forget. I’m sure there are others.
Here’s Fred’s original:
The Byrds – Dolphin’s Smile
Decent version by The The. Also I think TB’s Dream Letter version is better than the studio version.
…everything on Dream Letter is better than the studio version. Genius set, notwithstanding Pete Drummond’d famously ungracious intro.
Yes, absolutely. “Dream Letter” is one of the greatest live albums in the entire history of recorded music. An aura of magic seems to envelop every song. Absolutely staggering to think that Buckley was only 21 at the time.
@Carl Beth Orton did my favourite version on an EP.
The Alarm – A New South Wales
Nic Jones: The Humpback Whale
Pogues: Greenland Whale Fisheries
Jim Capaldi
Whale Meat Again.
There’s also this.
Country Joe & The Fish – Porpoise Mouth.
It’s not really about the eating apparatus of an aquatic marine mammal though.
Nik Kershaw – Save The Whale
Not a song, but a whole band! The Dolphin Brothers with the very beautiful My Winter (was this on any of the CD swap CDs?).
Superb – haven’t heard this for years…..
Jonah, he lived in a whale
Jonah, he lived in a whale
He made his home in that fish’s abdomen *
Jonah, he lived in a whale.
It Ain’t Necessarily So.
(Ray Charles & Cleo Laine)
* Yes, whales aren’t fish.
But Paul Simon says there’s no truth to that tale.
Drummer bloke, formerly with Tom Robinson Band, Stiff Little Fingers and Spear Of Destiny:
DOLPHIN Taylor
Looking for Laurie Anderson’s One White Whale on youtube I came across thisun, with both whales and dolphins! A veritable cataceanfest!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUJ_1qvW6Zc
But ‘One White Whale’ is much prettier:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sdl3dzsqQk
The Monkees – Porpoise Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sezVApK9rTk
Ian Brown – Dolphins Were Monkeys
There’s something profoundly wrong about seeing Ian Brown in a jacket. Like seeing William Rees-Mogg in yellow dungarees.
For that mental image, you’re welcome.
Jacob Rees-Mogg; the Playschool presenter years.
With a big ‘J’ on the bib, he could rock a Bill Bruford look, circa 1976.
Pearl Jam – The Whale Song
Wire – The Finest Drops
Death on a raft, life in a whale
No one is home to finish the tale
https://youtu.be/IQsWotO6Kn0
Well, you asked for it Rob.
I’d expect nothing less.
You’d think someone would have written a song about a walrus.
Man, you’ve been a naughty boy
Funny you should mention Man..
And walruses..
(I Always Thought The Walrus Was Protected)
The Everly Brothers.
Don Phil (anagram of dolphin)
Fantastic!
(🎵….and, after all, you’re my one narwhal🎵)
Realised that it’s better as a Spoonerism.
The Orca (Eyesight to the Blind)
Sense Of Porpoise
Come On Baleen
Vera Lynn (moaning about her dinner): Whale Meat Again
Have I the Right?
I can feel this thread veering ever so slightly off topic…. 🙂
Minke Afro.
Whale kipper a whelkhome in the eelside.
Procol Harum – Whaling Stories
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeqiDWlOlag
Just remembered this one.
“Here comes a killer whale…”
A story of whale fishing:
Bodega – Greenland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIaDXtf_O6U
Yes…
The Yes.
The Decemberists – Mariner’s Revenge Song
Anything by Bob Marley and the Whalers.
Anything off Blubber Soul.
Angry Anderson and the lads from Rose Tattoo…
Plus Sydney twosome Fielding And Dyer, who had a hit locally with this in 1974
Anything by Moby
Digging your cetacean – Blowhole Monkeys
Plankton for the Music – AHAB
Bring your Orca to the Slaughter – Iron Mermaid
Dolphin on the Ceiling – Sea Lionel Richie
They form LA funk-punk bands, too.
Whale – Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe:
Swedish, actually!
Yes, I knew that, Locust – I’m on the Afterword, after all. I was referring to the style of music – more RATM/FNM than Go4.
I have that on 12″ and the album, which is no less bonkers.
Aha, I see what you mean.
Fun fact: The guy in the orange dress is now one of Sweden’s top stand up comedians.
(And the female singer owns a book shop in Italy IIRC)
Somehow, I doubt any of them went on to become accountants.
Aha – We’re looking for the Whales*
*Apparently the song is about the first time the band (before the name change when they were still a new wave outfiit called The Heroes of Telemark) toured the UK in a small, light blue Bedford Van. They were due to play in Wrexham one night and had driven from Mansfield as far as Chester but managed to get lost on the ring road so Morten kept winding down the window and saying to any passersby in his best English “We’re looking for The Wales. Where also to buy nice Gravlax?” Eventually they made it to the venue but were bottled off after one song by a group of irate female Kirk Douglas fans who thought it was the monthly film night.
Harpoon is Now
This Minke’s Gone to Heaven
I’m baaad, I’m bad, Shamu
Pretty much any record played by Nick Scrimshaw
Message in a bottlenose.
Dorsal breakout
Fins can only get better
Alone again, orca.
M – Pod Muzik
Anything by:
Echolocation & The Bunnymen
Crispy Ambergris
Crispy Ambergris?
Sensational stuff.
I can now definitely hear the sound of a de-railing.
This one was clearly too obvious for you deep thinking types.
https://youtu.be/Tgcc5V9Hu3g
Us toocoolforschool-types wouldn’t post anything so obvious, daaahling.
We would never mention the two dolphins a leaping on the cover of one of the greatest debut LPs ever or the wee plastic dolphin that shows up on the cover of the subsequent Texas Fever E.P.
Or indeed, anything from Cetacean to Cetacean.
🙂
“I don’t think you’re ready
For this Spermaceti”
(Apologies to Beyoncé)
I was wondering when sperm would be mentioned
(AWTS)
P. Gabriel – Shock The Minke
Muse – Supermassive Blow-hole
Robert Wyatt’s Sea Song, concerns someone who is “partly baby sperm whale” and also “partly porpoise” (which may well be cetacean too – does anyone know? edit: they are):
Every sperm is sacred
Marc Bolan loved to Beluga
Blur – Theres No Other Whale
There are many versions of Bonnie Ship the Diamond but Wolfstone’s is my favourite – great bassline:
The B-52s, from “Rock Lobster”:
“Watch out for that piranha
There goes a narwhal”
Isn’t a narwhal a sort of whale? A whale with a sort of spikey bit at the front, if memory serves me right….
Said the whale to the narwhal, “You look like a knobhead”.
Have I left primary school yet?
A narwhal is indeed a whale, found only in the high arctic. The spiky bit is an overgrown tooth, generally only one, generally in males only, and as with a lot of whale-y things, no-one knows 100% what it’s really for. Best guess is some kind of male dominance thing for reproductive “rights”, if you get my drift.
“Whale-y things”? Woah, steady with the terminology there, pal! We’re not all zoologists!
It was thought by some that the tusk was from the unicorn and was often displayed as such.
– The what?
– TUSK!
– Fuck me, it’s Stevie Nicks!
Donkeys sing dolphin
Pequod Suit – Paul Weller
Killing an Ahab – The Cure
The Ishmaelites – Desmond Dekker
Right. My work here is done. Thank you and good night 🙂
Here’s NZ national treasure, David (Dave) Dobbyn singing a song about whaling called “Whaling”.
I quite like him – some of his songs are really close to being classics, but they just fall short.
However, this one could be an international hiteroonie if sung by a gravel voiced sincere youngster with cheekbones. It’s a sentimental toe-tapper called “Welcome Home”:
Only thought of this the other day, from York’s finest.
https://youtu.be/TiXvjaqpAoA
The Handsome Family,
“In our motel room you’re drinking slice and gin
Reading Moby Dick on the other bed”
I thought this article pertinent.
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/bowhead-whales-sing-song-jazz-kate-stafford-biology-letters-spitsbergen-population-greenland-a8286756.html