Shadow Puppet Storyteller

The anticipation..."it's cold and austere"

Soundtrack of my Life

Late November or early December I found out that the Broadway musical written by Sting several years ago was coming in January to Los Angeles. I first invested in the album back when iTunes was still in existence. In anticipation of seeing it, I dug out my iPod to listen to some of my favorite acts.

Although it is the title track of the album, conversely in the staging of the play, The Last Ship takes place just before intermission after many other rousing songs. It evokes Biblical reference with a bit of a twist, and that was how Sting's album originally captured my delight...in the unexpected twists. I had long been a fan of his marvelous lyrics, intelligent and sometimes biting with humor or just pure romance. This whole album has much to enjoy, and this song should have its lyrics at hand. He can make literary references like no other singer-songwriter I know (Eventhough I am sure Kris Kristofferson is as well-read). Also find one who can use the word, austere, both properly and in a song lyric as he does.



Lyrics:

It's all there in the gospels, the Magdalene girl
Comes to pay her respects, but her mind is awhirl.
When she finds the tomb empty, the stone had been rolled,
Not a sign of a corpse in the dark and the cold.
When she reaches the door, sees an unholy sight,
There's this solitary figure in a halo of light.
He just carries on floating past Calvary Hill,
In an almighty hurry, aye but she might catch him still.
"Tell me where are ye going Lord, and why in such haste?"
"Now don't hinder me woman, I've no time to waste!
For they're launching a boat on the morrow at noon,
And I have to be there before daybreak.
Oh I canna be missing, the lads'll expect me,
Why else would the good Lord himself resurrect me?
For nothing will stop me, I have to prevail,
Through the teeth of this tempest, in the mouth of a gale,
May the angels protect me if all else should fail,
When the last ship sails."
Oh the roar of the chains and the cracking of timbers,
The noise at the end of the world in your ears,
As a mountain of steel makes its way to the sea,
And the last ship sails.
It's a strange kind of beauty,
It's cold and austere,
And whatever it was that ye've done to be here,
It's the sum of yer hopes yer despairs and yer fears,
When the last ship sails.
Well the first to arrive saw these signs in the east,
Like that strange moving finger at Balthazar's Feast,
Where they asked the advice of some wandering priest,
And the sad ghosts of men whom they'd thought long deceased,
And whatever got said, they'd be counted at least,
When the last ship sails.
Oh the roar of the chains and the cracking of timbers,
The noise at the end of the world in your ears,
As a mountain of steel makes its way to the sea,
And the last ship sails.
And whatever you'd promised, whatever you've done,
And whatever the station in life you've become.
In the name of the Father, in the name of the Son,
And whatever the weave of this life that you've spun,
On the Earth or in Heaven or under the Sun,
When the last ship sails.

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Gordon Sumner
The Last Ship lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC