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O Captain! My Captain!

from Good Water Safe Camp (Remastered) by James Dean Cotton

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about

I have fellow songwriter, Nat Budin, to thank for this song (and many others), which was a product of one of his monthly songwriting challenges. I was familiar with this very famous poem, originally by watching "The Dead Poets Society", but later from reading Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass (1867)". I hadn’t really studied it. If you do, you’ll feel how much Whitman admired and loved Lincoln, for all he’d done for the nation and the pain he felt to lose him so soon after the end of the war. The melody and arrangement formed very quickly once I got the hang of the poem's meter and it makes it sound very old to me. Apologies to Whitman aficionados for minor modifications to benefit the song arrangement.

lyrics

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and vaulting

O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red
Where on the deck my Captain lies, fallen cold and dead
O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red
Where on the deck my Captain lies, fallen cold and dead

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning

Dear Captain! Dear Father! This arm beneath your head!
Is it a dream that on the deck, you’ve fallen cold and dead?
Dear Captain! Dear Father! This arm beneath your head!
Is it a dream that on the deck, you’ve fallen cold and dead?

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done
From fearful trip the victr’y ship comes in with object won

Exult the shores, and ring the bells! But I with mournful tread
Will walk the deck my Captain lies, fallen cold and dead
Exult the shores, and ring the bells! But I with mournful tread
Will walk the deck my Captain lies, fallen cold and dead

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting
Follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and vaulting

O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red
Where on the deck my Captain lies, fallen cold and dead
O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red
Where on the deck my Captain lies, fallen cold and dead

credits

from Good Water Safe Camp (Remastered), released April 26, 2023
Lyrics based on original poem by Walt Whitman, published in 1872 with slight modifications
Music: James Dean Cotton
Vocals, guitar and strings: James Dean Cotton
Violin: Bryan Djunaedi

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James Dean Cotton Seattle, Washington

James Dean Cotton hails from the Missouri Ozarks where bluegrass and Americana infused an easy, 70's acoustic style. He writes and performs solo and with the acoustic duo, American Sons, in the Seattle area.

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