Was only five years old when this was released on the same titled album in 1971, so like many people I guess, I was introduced to (the exciting guitar part of) this tune through 'Weekend World' (a former long-running British current affairs programme) and then discovered the full song a few years later on.
Since I discovered the full song (in the late 1970s), some of the lyrics have just stayed omnipresent in my mental jukebox ever since, especially the opening lines:
'Goodbye, little Robin-Marie
Don't try following me
Don't cry little Robin-Marie
'Cause you know I'm coming home soon . . .'
Besides picking up on this tune being a great love song, of course, I also quickly became aware that a Nantucket sleighride is the act of a harpooned whale literally taking a ship for a ride. However, it was only a couple of weeks ago that I finally looked up who Owen Coffin was, and what a tale there is behind this. In brief summary, a whaleship 'The Essex' was rammed and sunk by a sperm whale in the Pacific in1820, and to cut a long story short, in one of the smaller whale boats that the crew took refuge in, poor Coffin lost the draw on who had to be sacrificed and killed for the other few survivors' food.
Thus, for me, naturally there's now much added meaning to this timeless classic (canonised) love song:
'Fly your willow branches
Wrap your body round my soul
Lay down your reeds and drums on my soft sheets
There are years behind us reaching
To the place where hearts are beating
And I know you're the last true love I'll ever meet
And I know you're the last true love I'll ever meet'.
My mental jukebox doesn't hold all these lyrics perfectly, but still more or less, as enchantment, the tune sometimes plays in my mind to cheer up a drab depressing day.
Finally, got to see Mountain at, of all places, (my hometown) Bury Derby Hall (Bury Met) in about 2003 when the band did a real raw (but still interesting) version of 'Nantucket Sleighride'.
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