Northwest Passage
NORTHWEST PASSAGE (mp3 music) Music Page: NORTHWEST PASSAGE, song about kings and presidents wanting Northwest Passage found, song about brave explorers never finding the Northwest Passage, song about the Northwest Passage as materialism's pride, song about the oceanic trade route across North America, song about the cold north wind, song about mankind moving hardware, song about moving cargo by shipping or aircraft, song about leaning lessons where cold wind does blow, song about traveling freely over mountains ice and snow, song about unburdening hard care of heart and mind, song about traveling lightly
North West Passage
written by Paul Hall in 1980
(c) (p) by Paul Hall, 1987
"Go and find that northwest passage!"
kings and presidents, they said.
And the brave men went explorin'
came back livin or stayed there dead.
Searchin and a-lookin for materialism's pride,
but they could not find no trade route
'cross North America wide.
'Cause there ain't none. Unless you've got a submarine.
But there's a cold north wind a-blowin
pays no license, tax nor fee.
From the pole to the equator
she's a blowin wild and free.
there's a cold north wind a-blowin
pays no license, tax nor fee.
From the pole to the equator
she's a blowin wild and free.
Mankind moves his hardware
wherever he can go.
By shippin and by aircraft
with whatever cargo he can stow.
But if he learned the lessons
where the cold north wind does blow,
he too could travel freely
o'er the mountains, ice and snow.
'Cause there's a cold north wind a-blowin
pays no license, tax nor fee.
From the pole to the equator
she's a blowin wild and free.
There's a cold north wind a-blowin
pays no license, tax nor fee.
From the pole to the equator
she's a blowin wild and free.
She's a little wild, that may be,
but at least she's free.
So forget that heavy hardware.
Why don't you leave it all behind?
Unburden all that hard care
of your heart and of your mind.
Just learn to travel lightly
and like the north wind you will find
that the famous north west passage
from pole to pole does wind.
'Cause there's a cold north wind a-blowin
pays no license, tax nor fee.
From the pole to the equator
she's a blowin wild and free.
There's a cold north wind a-blowin
pays no license, tax nor fee.
From the pole to the equator
she's a blowin wild and free.
She's a little wild, that may be,
but at least she's free.
So wild and free.
Wild and free.
Wild and free.
Note from the composer and performer, Paul Hall:
Hi. From 1972 to 1989, I traveled hundreds of thousands of miles with little more than a backpack, and sometimes not even that. I suppose you might say it was an odyssey. So back in '80 when I wrote this song, it was based on personal observation, not opinion. Some people like to have children write all their songs and allow themselves to become mentally conditioned by opinion from cry babies that never went anywhere but whose songs are heard everywhere from boom boxes to p.a. systems in just about every mall, grocery store, any store, work site, recreation site and camp site in the country.
In this song, I don't mean to detract from the great men like Hudson or Lewis and Clark and others who were truly great explorers. Even though lots of them wanted to find the best trade link between Europe and China that wouldn't have to compete with the highly successful Islamic merchants in the west Asian areas of the Globe.
But I often couldn't help thinking about Jefferson, who sent Lewis and Clark, and his "Jeffersonian Ideal" which I had a peek at quite a while ago. It was a map of a United States and, if I remember correctly, the ambition was that it would extend from shore to shore and what I really remember was, that, all in between was equally distributed the ideal: and that was a personal farm for every American who wanted one.
Now somehow, by the 21st century, it didn't work out quite that way. I've covered more than fifty thousand miles in the USA alone. I've seen an empty place, mostly, with every body crammed in these conglomerates called cities peppered along the cost lines. During my travels, I've had the privilege of talking to just about a million people. And when I ask myself, "Do folks really want to be crammed together like that?" You know what? The answer has got to be no.
Maybe a lot of them like what they call "the inner city" and maybe it's okay for most of us to experience that from time to time. But I've spent about 16 years as a street singer and I can tell you, most of the people I've seen are trying to wrack their brains to find some way outa there.
I could sum it up in one bottom line phrase, just two words: sociological disaster. I consider it unlikely you'll accept this. I understand that. That's why I wrote this song that I sang in Paris, Jakarta, Suva, Huelva, New York, Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, and would have sung it in Boston, except the Police stopped me. What the song suggests is that if you want to find out, the only real way to do so it to get out there and find out for yourself.
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Copyright and Phonorecord (c) (p) 1987 by Paul A. L. Hall. All rights reserved.