White Frontier
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"White Frontier" is a Longest Johns original written by Robbie Sattin, released as track 9 on Voyage. The song isn't based on any one historical event, but takes inspiration from the many perilous and often fatal expeditions to explore the arctic in search of trade routes, resources, and scientific discovery.
Factoids
This song is the first TLJ release featuring Robbie on the octave mandolin.
Lyrics
As performed on Voyage.
{Chorus}
From the first light ray, to the midnight clear,
Can we carve a way through this white frontier?
How the frostbite mangles, blackened fingers all,
Sailors round their candles share their bitter thrall.
Grasp your boots and shovels, hundred miles or so,
Teeth rattle like raindrops, on and on it goes.
{Chorus}
Some, we send you westward, marching toward the sun,
Some into the south-lands, where the rivers run.
Maybe somewhere Eastern, Moscow can’t be far,
Bring us back some hope boys, lest we cross the bar.
{Chorus}
From the first light ray, to the midnight clear,
Are we doomed to stay in this white frontier?
(Now the waters have turned)
Should have left with the birds,
As the ice advances.
Heaven, when they find us, angels at our ease,
Left behind our statues on the frozen seas.
Once a shapely vessel, now a charnel house,
Drag her back to England, lay our bodies down.
Will they ever know, of our last goodbye?
In the cold and dark of the crushing night.
From the first light ray, to the midnight clear,
When we fought with God through this white frontier.