Words and music ©2000 (written in 1982) Gordon Bok, BMI
Gordon – 12-string “Bell” guitar
My friend Molly Schauffler once sang me the Norwegian song Moken (“Gulls”), and we realized our childhoods had one great gift in common. Fortunate we were, to grow up among adults who felt the privilege of living in this good land. I used some of the ideas from that song, but in the end I had to make up my own. I add a phrase from her song (“there where all the gulls are”) at the end.
Row my child, to the bird rock, where the gulls are sailing free
Dreams they do bring, and dreaming: dreams of the cold green sea
And who would be there but you love, to see what dreams there be?
Ho-ray, ho-ro, O hoo-ro
Row you now, be rowing; the day goes down before
And the ship of fairies sailing, to a dark and a distant shore
And how would you say what treasures would ever await them there?
Ho-ray, ho-ro, O hoo-ro
Sing my love, for the kingdom that ever we thought was gone
For the ship of ghosts is sailing, and that one will always return
Drowned are the lands and gone the sails, and the gull is their voice alone
Ho-ray, ho-ro, O hoo-ro
Row my dear, the day is fair where the young birds learn to sing
The world is a wheel of wonder that only the sun can spin
And the gull on the low and lifting swell is the world a-given wing
Ho-ray, ho-ro, O hoo-ro
Der hvor alle moker ar
The Bird Rock is recorded on the albums And So Will We Yet, The Music of Ann Mayo Muir (sung on both by Ann Mayo Muir), and Other Eyes (sung by Gordon), and is in the songbook One to Sing, One to Haul.