A Sailor's Life

"A Sailor's Life" is an English folk song, Roud 273, about a young woman who searches for her sailor lover and then hears that he has drowned. It was printed on eighteenth-century broadsides, and W. Percy Merrick collected a version from Henry Hills of Lodsworth, Sussex, in 1899. A. L. Lloyd recorded it in 1960, Judy Collins in 1961 and Martin Carthy in 1966, with Swarbrick on fiddle.

Denny brought the song to the band from her folk club repertoire. On Unhalfbricking it runs for eleven minutes and was recorded in one take, with Swarbrick guesting on fiddle and Thompson on guitar. Uncut described the track as eleven minutes of seething cymbal washes on a Celtic drone chord sequence, giving way to a middle section where Thompson and Swarbrick trade squalling crosswinds. Richie Unterberger of AllMusic called it a clear signpost to the future.

For Hutchings it was a turning point: it sparked his interest in traditional music and led him to research in the library at Cecil Sharp House, which became the basis for Liege & Lief. Mendelsohn of Rolling Stone thought it overlong. Ashley Hutchings recorded the song in 1994 and the group Solas in 2010.