Cliffs of Baccalieu, The

DESCRIPTION: "We were homebound in October from the shores of Labrador) when a storm blows up, making visibility poor. The crew spots the deadly island of Baccalieu at the last moment and, with the ships lee rails going under, manages to turn to avoid the rocks
AUTHOR: Jack Withers (1899-1964)
EARLIEST DATE: 1934 (The Adventures of the Irene B. Mellon)
KEYWORDS: ship escape storm
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
DT, BACALIEU
ADDITIONAL: John Feltham, _Northeast from Baccalieu_, Harry Cuff Publications, 1990, p. 78, "(no title)" (1 text)
Roud #26209
NOTES [428 words]: Although apparently a composed song, it has become so well-known in Newfoundland that many sources (including the DT lyrics page, Stan Rogers, and Feltham) list it as traditional. At this point, I think it *is* traditional, even though it may well still be in copyright.
According to Philip Hiscock's notes to this song in West, p. 54, it was written for a radio serial, "The Adventures of the Irene B. Mellon." Jack Withers wrote and directed the show; the song first appeared in April 1934, and obviously took off from there.
Another Hiscock article, "Folk Process In A Popular Medium: The 'Irene B. Mellon Radio Programme, 1934-1941," on pp. 177-190 of Thomas/Widdowson, discusses the program at length.
"The 'Irene B. Mellon' was a serial programme, which is to say that the story continued from one episode to the next. It took place on board an old three-masted Newfoundland schooner with a crew of eight men and a stowaway little girl" (pp. 181-182) and had a complex series of adventures involving everything from gangsters to spies to U-boats. Jack Withers, in addition to writing the show, was the ship's captain (and his daughter Marie played the girl stowaway). The rest of the "crew" was mostly amateur musicians. The show was never recorded, but the large majority of the scripts survive (p. 182).
The show had a complicated history, being initially broadcast on upstart station VOGY. VONF, the "Voice of Newfoundland," soon swallowed VOGY, and the show was canceled, but revived on a new independent station, VOCM ("Voice of the Common Man"; pp. 182-183).
The show finally went off the air in 1941; all of the performers had other jobs, and when the Americans arrived in Newfoundland (the main staging area for getting American supplied to Britain, and the base for anti-submarine patrols), they found it easier to support the war work, so there was no one to keep the show alive (p. 185). But it became a legend; people even believed the show and the ship were real, and took action to try to help the Mellon.
Interestingly, Hiscock says that this is the only song Jack Withers ever wrote! (p. 183). But several other songs which seem to have become traditional in Newfoundland originated on the program ("My Father's Old Sou'wester") or at least gained fame from it ("The Squid-Jiggin' Ground").
Baccalieu was a famous trouble spot and Newfoundland landmark; StoryKirwinWiddowson, p. 12, says that it was the standard point of navigation for many sailors -- so much so that it became a proverb: "wherever you are, steer northwest for Baccalieu." - RBW
Bibliography

StoryKirwinWiddowson: G. M. Story, W. J. Kirwin, and J. D. A. Widdowson, editors, Dictionary of Newfoundland English, second edition with supplement, Breakwater Press, 1990
Thomas/Widdowson: Gerald Thomas and J. D. A. Widdowson, editors, Studies in Newfoundland Folklore: Community and Process, Breakwater Books, 1991
West: Eric West, Sing Around This One: Songs of Newfoundland & Labrador Vol. 2, Vinland Music, 1997

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File: DTbacali

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