Monday 23 December 2013

Listened to with rapped attention

I don't rap, or at least I didn't, but I'm open to trying new things and decided to attempt some light-hearted piratical pre-Yule jollity at an open mic night a few days ago. It seemed to go down well, and a few people asked to read it, so here it is complete with nods to the Beastie Boys, Eminem and Cap'n Jack Sparrow - and you can hear a recording here.

The Hip Hop Company of Privateers

We are the Hip Hop Company of Privateers,
rapscallions with hats and fuse-match beards
rhyming and stealing Spanish galleons,
sailing ‘em away through white-foam stallions,
faster ‘cross the Channel than David Walliams,
we kiss the gunner’s daughters but we never marry ‘em.

Flintlock, stock, and one smoking barrel,
we’ll keel-haul Robin Thicke and Pharrell
press-ganged in Southampton, on the run from Stonehenge,
a crew of dub-loons on the Queen Anne’s Revenge
flying the Jolly Roger McGough,
we welcome all the ladies with our tricorns doffed.

Now you’ve heard of women pirates disguised as guys,
down in the hammock-room a big surprise,
but on this ship our opps are equal,
X-chromosomes run thicker than treacle,
when we make port, when we drop anchor,
your sons will quiver like lily-livered… one, two, three, four…

Scowl and cross-words, monochromatic,
swinging on ropes we’re acrobatic,
we climb your rigging, you jump in the water,
all brown in the trousers like Luke Plank-walker,
the Navy chased us from Trinidad to Thailand,
but we’d buried all our treasure on a desert island.

Yo-ho-home is the place where the rum-cask is,
'a gottle o’ grog’ said the drunken ventriloquist,
Cadizzy rascals in the Bay of Biscay,
smoking sixty Silk Cutlass a day,
some fat, some slim, but all are shady,
give an undead monkey to the voodoo lady.

Never marooned or short of gold,
our timbers are shivered, our course is bold,
we’ve got a magic map, so pay attention,
a cross marks the spot where we hid our pensions –
three paces north and fifty west
but you’ve got to join us to hear the rest.

[Repeat] We are the…

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