3 - Bring Back Home | Ange Hardy - somerset based folk songwriter and singer

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3 - Bring Back Home

This story was inspired by a conversation with David Milton, the Watchet Town Crier. This story feels like it might be part of the same story that I started telling in Bare Foot Folk in the songs “Away with You Lassie”, “The Old Maiden” and “The Storm Has Now Begun”. This may well be the song of Nancy as she waited on the shore for Johnny to come home.

Ultimately this is a song about letting go, and making the most of the life that you have. As with "Away With You Lassie" it's about making the most of the hand you are dealt and knowing when it's time to move on.

Four and twenty sailors hauled away the bonny bay
Away the bonny boy and to the vast and rolling sea
Four and twenty sailors hauled away the bonny bay
All to fetch a find to bring back home

Bring back home
Oh Johnny said to wait for me
He said that he’d not leave me on my own
Bring back home
Too many tides have come and been
Too many ships without him come and gone
Bring back home
Oh when will you come back to me?
Oh Johnny will I always be alone?
Bring back home.

Four and twenty sailors bound all o’er the briny sea
All o’er the briny sea for more than 20,000 leagues
Four and twenty sailors bound all o’er the briny sea
All to fetch a find to bring back home

And four and twenty sailors heard a ringing of the bell
A ringing of the bell and the boatswain’s call to flee
Four and twenty sailors heard a ringing of the bell
All to fetch a find to bring back home

Four and twenty sailors drowned beneath the blackened sway
Beneath the blackened sway now all are lost unto the sea
Four and twenty sailors drowned beneath the blackened sway
All to fetch a find to bring back home