Another Bay

            © Robin Chotzinoff

           

            Robin, a fine singer and songwriter from Denver, Colorado, sent me this song about her friends back on Long Island, NY.  The original white settlers of that area, the "Bonackers" (who lived mostly around Acabonack Creek and Harbor) are more and more hard pressed to make a living in that increasingly crowded and polluted place.

            Both Robin and I have apparently changed the words a little over the years.  She says she's not fussy about it, but I include the words she originally sent to me in the booklet.  The arrangement here is mostly Robin's own; the twelve-string is only trying to give the flavor of her strong piano-playing.

 

            It wasn't like this last year

            It wasn't like this at all

            We were taking the blues and thr groupers

            From February into the fall

            You to ask yourself what happened

            When you're up against the wall

            It wasn't like this last year

            It wasn't like this at all.

 

            Speak, speak, Bonack

            It's a fair gant end to the bayman's day

            Speak, speak Bonac

            All the children are moving away

            Has it come down plain

            Is it time to seine

            On another bay?

 

            And could these be the Lesters

            Who used to run this town

            When the right whale swam off Ponquogue

            They would sail their tall ships down

            There were Lesters in the rigging

            Lesters on the Sound

            Could these old men be the Lesters

            Who used to run this town?

 

            Speak, speak Bonac…

           

            Last night when you went fishing

            And I saw you face to face

            I knew as clear as a bell through the fog

            That you'd never leave this place

            No more can the hunter in the sky

            Give up his fruitless chase

            It's as clear as a bell through the fog at night

            When I saw you face to face

            It's as clear as a bell through the fog at night

            That you'll never leave this place.

 

            Speak, speak Bonac…

 

           

           

Another Bay  is recorded on the album Schooners and is in the songbook One to Sing, One to Haul