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« Jack Was Every Inch a Sailor ». Chanson reprenant l'histoire biblique de Jonas en l'appliquant à un pêcheur terre-neuvien. Elle semble avoir été adaptée d'une chanson de music-hall new-yorkaise, « Every Inch a Sailor ». Phillips Barry, un folkloriste des États-Unis, note qu'il s'agit d'une version locale des paroles (mais non de la mélodie) du « burlesque original de "Pinafore" tel que chanté par mademoiselle Venie Clancy et imprimé dans le Complete Music Album de White à Boston en 1884 », et que le chanteur de ballades Frank Crumit « en grava un enregistrement sur disque qui devint populaire »(1928, Victor 21668). La chanson, qui n'a jamais été traduite en français, a été publiée dans le recueil Ballads and Sea Songs of Newfoundlandde Greenleaf et Mansfield (Cambridge, Mass. 1933) et enregistrée par Alan Millssur le micr. Folk Songs of Newfoundland(1953, Folkways FW-6931), ainsi que par Dick Nolan, Tom Kineset Omar Blondahl. Richard Johnstonen a fait un arrangement pour choeur (Waterloo 1959).
Now 'twas twenty-five or thirty years since Jack first saw the light;He came into this world of woe one dark and stormy night.He was born on board his father's ship as she was lying to,'Bout twenty-five or thirty miles southeast of Bacalhao.
Jack was every inch a sailor, five and twenty years a whaler;Jack was every inch a sailor; he was born upon the bright blue sea.
When Jack grew up to be a man, he went to Labrador;He fished in Indian harbour where his father fished before;On his returning in the fog, he met a heavy gale,And Jack was swept into the sea and swallowed by a whale.
Jack was every inch a sailor, five and twenty years a whaler;Jack was every inch a sailor; he was born upon the bright blue sea.
The whale went straight for Baffin's Bay 'bout ninety knots an hour,And every time he'd blow a spray he'd send it in a shower.Oh, now," says Jack unto himself, "I must see what he's about."He caught the whale all by the tail and turned him inside out.
Jack was every inch a sailor, five and twenty years a whaler;Jack was every inch a sailor; he was born upon the bright blue sea.
