Barrett's Privateers
"Barrett's Privateers" is a modern folk song in the style of a sea shanty, written and performed by Canadian musician Stan Rogers, having been inspired after a song session with the Friends of Fiddler's Green at the Northern Lights Festival Boréal in Sudbury, Ontario. The song describes a teenager's 1778 summer privateering journey from Nova Scotia to the Caribbean on a decrepit sloop, the Antelope, captained by Elcid Barrett; when it engages in a failed raid on a larger American ship, the Antelope sinks and all the crew are killed except the singer, who returns six years later "a broken man", having lost both his legs in the disaster. Barrett, the Antelope and other elements of the song are fictional, but "Barrett's Privateers" is full of authentic details of privateering during the American Revolution, which in Nova Scotia was dominated by privateer warfare.
The song was released on the album Fogarty's Cove in 1976 and has since gained popularity as a drinking song, with cover versions by many bands. It also appears on later Stan Rogers live albums Home in Halifax and Between the Breaks ... Live! The song makes use of mixed meter, regularly switching back and forth from 24 to 34 time. It is regarded as one of the Royal Canadian Navy's unofficial anthems, is the unofficial anthem of Atlantic Canada, and is also often sung at many Atlantic universities, including (west to east) University of New Brunswick, Mount Allison University, Acadia University, Dalhousie University, Saint Mary's University, University of King's College, St. Francis Xavier University, Cape Breton University, St. John's College (Annapolis/Santa Fe), and Memorial University of Newfoundland.
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