LADY
LOVIBOND Part 2
(Words & music; Colin Reece)
From the album 'Like The Snow' by The Bully Wee Band
The Lady
Lovibond legend continues with the reports that she has been sighted
every 50 years on the anniversary of her sinking on the Goodwin Sands on 13
February 1748.
This song is set 100 years after her sinking, when a lifeboat crew is called out
to assist a ship in distress but find something very different indeed.
The stench of rotting
wood and the stench of rotting bones
I swear with ease could match the very bowels of Davy Jones
And the truth of what we saw that day is ours to know alone
That Lovibond she once again set sail
Some twenty-six feet down and just a few miles off
the Kentish Coast
so perilously near the Straights of Dover
The sands they shift from tide to tide you'd swear at times they come alive
One purpose for to seek out yet another
Half buried timbers, buried bones, old masts reach up from long ago
To touch the very surface of the water
So many have they claimed from fishing smack to Spanish galleon
To father, mother, child they
give no quarter
You couldn't see a hand before your face I swear it's
true
As we set off that cold dark February morning
Yet as a man we battled on to push our boat out through the fog
We gave no second thought to any warnings
For lifeboat men will ask no more, once called to aid and set to oar
We pull on through the waves both hard and fast
And as we broke out through the mist the swell it settled down we kissed
Our blessings for the gift of sight at last.
It started with a flurry
like some giant fin had hurriedly
Decided not to break above the surface
The next we knew the ocean seemed to waken from some monstrous dream
Awoken by some fierce and fiery furnace
I’ve seen some sights in all my years, heard stories that would burn your ears
Some sights would turn your insides inside out
But what happened next that day I swear upon my life and all that’s dear
It is the truth my friend be in no doubt.
First one mast and then
one more and finally a third before
She rose up from the depths before our eyes
‘Til then within an eerie glow the waters settled down to show
A ship that somehow wasn’t of these times.
The chill that shivered down my spine, I realised the date and I
Was mindful of the ancient sailor’s story
‘Twas one hundred years unto the day since Lovibond she’d sailed away
Yet here she stood in all her ghostly glory.
The stench of rotting
wood and the stench of rotting bones
I swear with ease could match the very bowels of Davy Jones
And as she turned she bore right down upon us with groan
As Lovibond she once again set sail.
As Lovibond she raised her
bow and just as soon came crashing down
I felt myself prepare to meet my maker
But it seemed another’s life was flashing now before my eyes
A life despairing of a love forsaken
I watched this tragic tale unfold, now gripped within a deathly cold
I raised my head but somehow felt no fear
I opened up my eyes to see no ghost ship but an empty sea
For Lovibond had simply disappeared.
The stench of rotting wood
and the stench of rotting bones
I swear with ease could match the very bowels of Davy Jones
But the truth of what we saw that day is ours to know alone
That Lovibond she once again set sail.