I think it was Robson asking if any of the new songs could be based on novels. I thought that a very interesting question as we know MK often transforms material that he has read into songs.
However, there are already so many explanations about most of the songs without any hints to books that this one, Sky And Water, seems to me the most possible one with a literary source.
I was researching a lot about this one already.
What we have is a mutiny because of a tyrannical captain on a brig and the Captain who was not murdered by the "hands" but sent away in one of his own boats. The narrator has been lashed and knows that he will do the "hempen jig" which means hanging for mutiny, when coming home. So he and the other mutineers on the brig hope to find land to make a new life.
I found no historical mutiny that fits with the details.
The Bounty is the most famous one with many books written about, but it was no Brig and Bligh was not a tyrant.
Captain Hugh Pigot from the Hermione was a Tyrant but was hacked and killed at the mutiny of 1797.
So maybe MK does only make up a "typical" mutiny here, exemplaric, not basing on facts?
Or he re-tells the fictional story of a novel here, maybe another Patrick O'Brian novel or another author?
What strikes me is that the hanging of Mutineers is again brought up here as already in One Song At A Time which we are already discussing.
I must say I would not be too happy with MK just making it up here, but that's just the pedant in me.
The flogging captain was already portrayed in Privateering, so this song could be seen as Privateering part 2 in a way..
Any ideas? Any books/ movies known that fit with the details?
Sorry for the long post.
LE
