The Radio-Ballads were an amazing achievement, Thank-You to Ewan & Peggy & Charles Parker.

Norma weda..i love u,and all u stand for

Simply beautiful and class

Powerful singing very beautiful

"Sailed a million miles, caught ten million fishes". Love it, thanks so much for posting! Greetings from Michigan.

The best

I love this song. It's one of my fav's by Gord. Seeing the these powerful images while listening makes it all the more fulfilling. It's clear the gentleman who created this would be truly inspired by the song. Very well thought out creation indeed. Also it has given me the inspiration to get back to try and play a half decent version of it on the guitar. Many thanks for sharing this with us. Ron Jones.

Bellissima canzone piena energia e patos

Thank you - only heard the version from the film! Nice to hear the original/older rendition! Lovely song...

Haven't heard this in years. 😢

The remarkable thing of this song is that it was written around 1012 and the same thing is still happening over a thousand years later.How many songs today will still be sung in a thousand years.Well done Sandy and Fairport the best folk rock album.

Beautiful 👍❤️🙏 Thank you.

I’ve listened to at least 50 expletives singing this song. No one comes close.

Magic, thank you.

Evan McColl was a genius.

I like the Transcript lyrics "..... and the cakes were many .....". Not likely .

Thank you Oscar Isaac for introducing me to this song

excellent

Lyrics The oceans of the world were the home of Big Blue He was the greatest monster that the world ever knew And the place that he loved best Was the waters to the west Around the blue Pacific he did roam Big Blue moved alone for a mighty blue was he And the battles of the whales was an awesome sight to see And he took them one by one and he drove them all away In the mating of the day he was the king Big Blue had fifty wives and he sired forty sons Though most of them fell victim to the cruel harpoon guns Ah but he was too much wise to get caught by the gunners' eyes And so he lived at sea a hundred years His mouth was as large as a tunnel so they say His hide was thick as leather and his eyes quick and small And his back was all scarred by the times he got away And he knew the smell of whalers did Big Blue Big Blue passed away to his natural decay Beside the Arctic Circle as he travelled up that way And there never was a man who was born with a gunner's hand Whoever took a pan to Big Blue Now the gray whale has run and the sperm is almost done The finbacks and the Greenland rights have all passed and gone They've been taken by the men for the money they could spend And the killing never ends, it just goes on The oceans of the earth were the home of Big Blue He was the greatest monster that the world ever knew And the place that he loved best was the waters to the west Around the blue Pacific he did roam Source: Musixmatch Songwriters: Gordon Lightfoot

Nice video. 3 May 2023 - An old favorite to watch with the passing of a legend in his own time. rest in peace, now, dear brother.

Thank you, Gordon for your life and for punctuating my Journey with your beautiful songs and time with us.

For the first time in my life, off the coast of So. California, it's actually becoming normal to see whales in the channel. My last fishing trip, we observed eight whales, four of them grays, two blues, one fin, I think, and one humpback, I think. The last two were kind of far, but the blues and grays surfaced within 50 yards of boat. Was an incredible sight. Hard to believe that people will still kill these magnificent animals.

Sperm whale...

..love it..

based

I commend Gordon Lightfoot fir singing this!

I love this song! All the herrings were gone by the time I went to school in Yarmouth, but my grandma came from a fishing family. Her father was born in the Rows and lived as a child in a Peggotty Hut ...

Can anyone else ''hear'' Chimes of Freedom and The Irish Rover by The Pogues in this one??

A true classic. Ewan McColl really had it.

Ewan was regularly spotted along the Bridgewater Canal that ran near his house in Salford , On a Sunday morning looking for Shoals of Herring as well as the Manchester Ship Canal Unfortunately he ended up having no look and had to settle for a Fry up at Ma Garanzinis cafe.

This song and many others like it have broken my heart a thousand times since I was aware. God bless the singers, the songs and the tradition. xx

The oceans of the world were the home of Big Blue He was the greatest monster that the world ever knew And the place that he loved best Was the waters to the west Around the blue Pacific he did roam Big Blue moved alone for a mighty blue was he And the battles of the whales was an awesome sight to see And he took them one by one and he drove them all away In the mating of the day he was the king Big Blue had fifty wives and he sired forty sons Though most of them fell victim to the cruel harpoon guns Ah but he was too much wise to get caught by the gunners' eyes And so he lived at sea a hundred years His mouth was as large as a tunnel so they say His hide was thick as leather and his eyes quick and small And his back was all scarred by the times he got away And he knew the smell of whalers did Big Blue Big Blue passed away to his natural decay Beside the Arctic Circle as he travelled up that way And there never was a man who was born with a gunner's hand Whoever took a pan to Big Blue Now the gray whale has run and the sperm is almost done The finbacks and the Greenland rights have all passed and gone They've been taken by the men for the money they could spend And the killing never ends, it just goes on The oceans of the earth were the home of Big Blue He was the greatest monster that the world ever knew And the place that he loved best was the waters to the west Around the blue Pacific he did roam

I saw them We had to stop Their huge hulks rolling up to blow dwarfing the boat as they fed on krill Oblivious of us They went Sea birds in a rush We were all just petrified From every man a hush.

Ewan MacColl who wrote "The first time ever i saw her face".

I always had a lot of respect for fishermen. I remember seeing them going to sea from the school bus and I really felt for them, risking their lives (at times the sea looked really choppy) to bring back the daily catch. And you never picked a fight with a fisherman, if you knew what was good for you!

This is a welcome tribute to all those who earn their living on the sea and may they all have safe sailing on every voyage they take on the oceans of the world.

Luke Kelly's version is the definitive version

Don't think this is at all how it would be sung by working fisherman. How can he malign the original intent of the composer?

Magnificent

"Now the Grey Whale has run, And the Sperm is almost done. The Finbacks and the Greenland Rights Have all passed and gone. They've been taken by the men For the money they could spend. And the killing never ends, It just goes on..."

Ewan wrote this and other great songs for a series he and wife, Peggy Seeger did for BBC radio. This one was called"Singing the Fishing" and the entire series paid tribute to ways of earning their livings that no longer exist for working people. He did a great one about the traveling people. Ewan also was a wonderful ballad singer and has a series of recordings of the Child Ballads that is absolutely wonderful. RIP Ewan. I just noticed that RadioBalladsFilms has the Shoals of Herring in 5 part series. on KZbin

WELL SAID MY FRIEND !!! A VERY SAD AND TRAGIC REALITY !!! SURELY KILLING SUCH A MAGNIFICENT AND BEAUTIFUL CREATURE WOULD TRULY BE A MASSIVE SIN ON GOD'S CREATION !!! WILL HUNTING AND KILLING OF THESE PRECIOUS GIFTS FROM GOD EVER STOP ??? OR WILL THE WHALES BECOME PART OF MYTHOLOGY WHEN THE LAST WHALE DIES ???

When I was a kid, we learned how the herring shoals would move from north of Scotland down the east cost with boats going out from the fishing ports in turn taking a catch. The fishing became more efficient and overtook the ability of the fish to sustain their numbers and so it died.

Working class man through and through, communist and a folk singer. They don't make them like him anymore.

There were more boats then than there are herrings now. What a sad state of affairs, humans have made the garden of Eden into a desert.

Is it any wonder Bob Dylan rates Gordon his favourite singer/composer.Jimmy Buffet and Chris Kris Kristofferson say he had so much influence on their songwriting.Saw GL in Australia in the eighties, please come back again and thank you for your great songs and the pleasure you have brought to so many Gordon.

Kirstys dad.

Great song my granny vida worked in Yarmouth at the herring in 1920s

I've just got here from searching this old song, because of the recent problems between British and French (and other EU ) fishing in waters around the British Isles. I had to show to some people what fishing was like in those days. Who really want to work in that job today ? Fishing might have got more technical or modern whatever, i don't know, but no youth would want to work like they did in those days, but not those days but just more recently. People still do that job for a living. It's often by families, but less and less youth wish to do that job. (there's no date for those pics, i guess early 1900s ? ).

To whoever took the time and care to find these pictures and post them, thank you! They are superb - our ancestors are still part of us and we need to remember how they lived and what they survived.