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The Widow And The Cruel Sea

from SKAIL by Malcolm MacWatt

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    Artwork by Lamar Sorrento, Memphis TN
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about

“The Widow and The Cruel Sea” is the story of a woman who loses her fisherman husband at sea and is desperate to escape the social confines of a young widow in a Highland village to start a new life in the American colonies.

lyrics

The boat comes in and she’s sitting low
They’ve had a good day’s fishing with a catch to show
But something’s wrong I can clearly see
Two fishermen when there should be three
Oh please god let it not be me
A widow made by the cruel sea

At last the oars touch the sand
I run up looking for my man
But all my fears were realised
They said a big sea pulled him ow’r the side
We’re heartfelt sorry for your loss
He was a fine young man as ever was

​CH: I wish that I could leave this place
Break free of my widow’s chains
In the new world across the sea
An American I’d like to be

​But I’ve one bairn he’s just one year
And a woman can’t do what she wants round here
My dead man’s brother holds the key
To what life has in store for me
When the men would talk I’d hear him say
How he would leave if he could one day

So I became a brother’s wife
I can’t complain for he treats me right
I know his heart he knows my mind
And he’s promised we will leave in time
And I use the gifts that god gave me
To keep him sweet as a man can be

​Two years on and we crossed that sea
Where I lost my boy to a malady
We settled here in Portland Maine
And soon I’ll have a child again
Scotland is from where we came
But now we’re all Americans

​CH: I wished that I could leave that place
I broke free of my widow’s chains
In the new world across the sea
An American I will always be

credits

from SKAIL, released July 4, 2020

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Malcolm MacWatt London, UK

“MacWatt will doubtless be considered among the best of the new breed of folksingers and songwriters, who speak of the past as a way to perhaps understand it and move forward” Stephen Rapid, Lonesome Highway

“He shines as a singer and he shines as an interpreter of the eternal folk songbook,” Tom Brosseau, The Great American Folk Show, North Dakota ... more

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