Ricky Joe Vella: Music and Videos

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I had one more recording session booked with the blues guitarist Mike Branton and I wanted a new song. I looked around the Moonshine Cafe in Oakville where I hang. I needed inspiration. Well on the wall were a couple of ceramic thingies, from the 40's probably. One of them was a pirate and the other looked like a Dickens character. So I went home and googled DICKENS and PIRATE, expecting to find some pirate character in a Dickens novel. Instead, the first hits were about Dickens suing newspapers for publishing his works without permission or payment. Pirating.

(Chord Progression is D5 Cadd9 G D5. Guitar tuned to DADGBD)

The singing pirate and mr dickens
Were sitting around talking and drinkin
Reminiscing about the good old days

The pirate wanted to go back to the times
When you could sing what you wanted and it wasn’t a crime
And copyrights weren’t bureaucrat paydays

Then the pirate said to mr dickens
“I’ll sing your words and do the pickin’
But don’t come looking for royalties unfair”

Well dickens replied to the pirate man
While making a gesture with his hand
“we all forge the chains that we wear”

So the pirate did a gig that night
And the dickens phrases came to light
And the lawyers rubbed their hands in glee

And mr dickens sued the sailor
And the pirate was found in failure
Of remuneration in way of fees

Dickens now had the pirate ship
And a motley crew that was very hip
To working for a man of such prestige

While the pirate drank his way to jail
And is currently awaiting bail
Ya even his parrot in under siege

I still remember what the pirate said
As he lay upon his prison bed
“mr dickens just didn’t understand.

That the moral of this story is
Don’t you repeat what is his
You’ll be a sailor forever locked to land”

And mr dickens went on to fame
And his characters are well-known by name
Fagin and Scrooge and Oliver Twist

And this story ends without a thought
As how you could and should have taught
Your little pirates that are now on his wanted list

"please sir I want some more"

"bah humbug"