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- Home /
- The Annotated Lyrics /
- Oleano
Oleano
Lyrics
I'm just trying to uncover the truth
Where's the Captain?
It's over, Cap'n
Consider the helm, the helm.
The captain is in his bunk berth,
asleep as he should be.
Just trying to uncover the truth
It's over for you except scream.
"Aaaaah!"
Ah/ah ah/ah [coughing]
We're just trying to uncover the truth
Oleano (2)
Where's the captain?
Captain asleep in his bunk
Continue
Esconced in snow
The hell of....
This was the hell of Oleano HMS
Ensconced in snow
Ensconced
And still she is ensconced in snow.
Notes
1. This is a sketchy and obscure story of a nautical disaster with no real-world correlate I can discover; that is, I can find no record of such an event involving a ship named Oleano, Oleanna, or Oleander (or any spelling variants), and if the ship is pseudonymous the song could refer to just about anything (in that case, it certainly could be yet another song about the Titanic). There was a British fleet ship called Oleander that participated in the Falklands war, but by that time it was renamed Olmeda and it doesn't seem to have sunk (nor is there much snow or ice off the coast of Argentina).
However, Colin in the comments below attests that in at least one live performance the song was introduced with a spiel by MES claiming that song is about the Falklands war. In lieu of corroborating evidence about a similar incident, we have to assume the lyrics are fictional, or a fictionalized account of a real incident that is similar in some respects to the story told here.
There was also a supposedly secret US post office called "Oleona Base" in Antartica that operated some time in the mid-20th century. As you can probably imagine, information about this on the web seems a bit dubious, and I don't have the patience to wade through it but, secret or not, the post office seems to have been real. Of course this may have little to do with the song, certainly "HMS" seems to suggest a British ship rather than an American post office.
Comments (28)
http://z1.invisionfree.com/thefall/index.php?showtopic=4767
Postmark:
http://www.qsl.net/kg0yh/Oleana_lg.jpg
It was near the Falklands, you know.
What is interesting, perhaps, is that there was a ship called "Incognito", which brought settlers from Norway who ended up in Oleana colony, which sank in 1853, see: http://www.norwayheritage.com/p_ship.asp?sh=incog
I wrote about this on the forum, but nobody bought it. Fair enough, I have no more convincing details. But I want to record it here because I could imagine MES reading the story and writing a bit of a narrative around it which he then boiled down into this vaguer song.
Excuse me but I didn't fictionalize a thing. I have the tape. What motive or incentive do I have to make up a story about the lyrical theme of Oleano?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavius_(ship)
http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/dobson-rosemary/the-ship-of-ice-0337021
This of course is a loose quotation from Captain Beefheart's "Orange Claw Hammer", off Trout Mask Replica:
Mike Barnes, in Captain Beefheart: The biography, says that Orange Claw Hammer
So there's various echoes of all this, and the other connections made in earlier notes, in the lyric if you want to look for them.
I don't see much connection here between the lyrics on the studio version and Orange Claw Hammer, though...
Krazy House, Liverpool, 2 Dec 1997, begins: "This is the tale of HMS Oleano..."
Bristol Bierkeller, 9 Sept 1997, beings "This is the tale of HMS Oleano..."
Nothing about the Falklands. But of course a reference to the Falklands wouldn't make it a lyric about the Falklands war,
I watched about 15 mins of this , no tangible relevance except the female character saying "I'm just tryna" and being cut off a couple of times.
Apparently the play's title comes from the Norwegian folk song identified in comment 9 about a land where one need not lift a finger to have a good life. Various lyrics online, no real correspondence except in Pete Seegers version
In Oleanna land is free,
The wheat and corn just plant themselves,
Then grow a good four feet a day,
While on your bed you rest yourself
Which is a bit like
The captain is in his bunk berth,
asleep as he should be.
The best connection is really Smith's pronunciation which is much more like "Oleanna" than "Oleano"
I watched about 15 mins of this , no tangible relevance except the female character saying "I'm just tryna" and being cut off a couple of times.
Apparently the play's title comes from the Norwegian folk song identified in comment 9 about a land where one need not lift a finger to have a good life. Various lyrics online, no real correspondence except in Pete Seegers version
In Oleanna land is free,
The wheat and corn just plant themselves,
Then grow a good four feet a day,
While on your bed you rest yourself
Which is a bit like
The captain is in his bunk berth,
asleep as he should be.
The best connection is really Smith's pronunciation which is much more like "Oleanna" than "Oleano"