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The Music of Robert Louis Stevenson
On Board of the Old Equator
By J.F.M. Russell ©2019
Robert Louis Stevenson began studying the piano and composition at age 36 and learned the penny whistle two years later. He played the flageolet, a version of the whistle equipped with keys, almost until the end of his life. His arrangements and compositions include more than 120 pieces. This site describes his complete works through facsimiles, transcriptions, recordings, quotations and commentary.
"An interesting chapter in his life will be written when all his scattered pieces are brought together, and the musical side of his character unexpectedly revealed to the vast public that knows him now only as the winsome versifier and the accomplished romancer."
Robert Murrell Stevenson (1916-2012) in Robert Louis Stevenson's Musical Interests, 1957.
Facsimile:
Lyrics:
Two of three surviving copies at the Yale and Huntington libraries of lyrics printed for the Tivoli Hotel dinner in Apia, Samoa, December 9, 1889. Another copy, not shown, is at Harvard.
McKay, George L. A Stevenson Library Catalogue. New Haven: Yale University Library, 1961. Facsimile facing page 220 in v. 1.
Setting:
Recording:
Manuscript Location:
The ms. for the music is in the Princeton University Library, Morris L. Parrish Collection, Box/Series/Folder/Thesis #: Bd MSS 113, 114, Code/Call Number #: C0171 1B
Sources:
Moore's Irish melodies. Boston: Ditson, 1893, via Google books:
Significant References in Works of R.L.S.:
Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, via Google books: Songs of Travel, XXXIV, final stanza.
Comments:
On the 16th of November, 1889, the schooner Equator, all sails standing, was becalmed in the South Pacific a few hundred miles south of Butaritari. The Stevensons were asleep in their specially fitted stateroom when a sudden squall tipped the Equator on its side, ripped a sail and threw Louis and Fanny against the wall. Lloyd Osbourne's shipboard diary records that the fore topmast was lost.
No one was hurt and the ship was soon righted, but RLS was so impressed that he wrote two letters and two poems about the event, including To My Wife and On Board of the Old Equator, the complete lyrics of which read:
I’ll sing you a tale of a tropical sea,On board of the old Equator.There never were passengers better than we, On board of the old Equator.
Chorus:
Captain, darling, where has your topmast gone pray?Captain, darling, where has your topmast gone?Of chequers the captain did blow and boast,On board of the old Equator.The passengers did him as brown as a roast,On board of the old Equator.
Chorus, --Captain, darling, &c.
In Santo Pedro was our delight, On board of the old Equator.When bobbery struck us along in the night, On board of the old Equator.
Chorus, --Captain, darling, &c.
The captain he ran from a fifteen hand, On board of the old Equator.I’ll be damned if that old jib-topsail will stand, On board of the old Equator.
Chorus, --Captain, darling, &c.
The sail was the rotteness’d ever was bent,On board of the old Equator.But blamed if it wasn’t the stick that went,On board of the old Equator.
Chorus, --Captain, darling, &c.
The captain he turned to the mate, and he laughed, On board of the old Equator.I guess you are learning some sailor craft, On board of the old Equator.
Chorus, --Captain, darling, &c.
There’s one thing you know at the least and the last, On board of the old Equator.You know how to lose a fore-topmastOn board of the old Equator.
Chorus, --Captain, darling, &c.
Santo Pedro, also known as Pedro Sancho, was a card game probably introduced into California in the 1880's. A "fifteen hand" was a score in that game.
Celebrating the Storm
Thomson Murray MacCallum (1869-1957), the Equator’s 20 year old novice cook, recalled Stevenson’s birthday celebration in his book Adrift in the South Seas (1934):
Another passenger, Paul Leonard, also known as Paul Höflich, described the same storm and celebration in Nellie Sanchez’s The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson (1920):
On the day of the party, which also celebrated the November 12th birthday of fellow passenger Adolf Rick, Lloyd photographed the participants. Wearing a hat with a band, Fanny sits to the left of Scotch-Irish Captain Edwin Dennis Reid (1865?-1920) in a Tam O’Shanter. RLS stands at the far left.
Though both MacCallum and Leonard claim the song lyrics were written by Fanny and Lloyd for RLS's birthday, this contradicts Lloyd Osbourne's entry in his shipboard diary as reported in an email of March 19, 2019 by Roger Swearingen. Lloyd records that the fore topmast was lost on November 16th, 3 days after Stevenson's 39th birthday on November 13, 1889. Swearingen writes,
After he had been thrown against the wall, Stevenson asked Murray MacCallum to give a message to the Captain.
Young and Old Charmers
Murray MacCallum said On Board of the Old Equator was written to the melody of a popular song and that Lloyd sang it. Paul Leonard said he joined in the singing. However no one ever actually names the tune.
There is no obvious clue to the music in Stevenson’s lyrics, but of the more than 120 manuscript copies of his own compositions, arrangements and favorite tunes, the most obvious choice is Believe Me, which requires only, as RLS said of Alan’s Air in Catriona, “a little humouring to the notes in question.”
New lyrics are often supplied to old songs to take advantage of the irony that results from the contrast, and On Board of the Old Equator is no exception.
According to the Historic American Engineering Record of the United States National Park Service, the 78 foot, 72 ton schooner Equator entered the South Pacific copra trade in June 1888 under 23 year old Captain Edwin Dennis Reid, so when Stevenson began his journey from Hawaii on June 24, 1889 the boat had been in the water for only a year and hardly deserved to be called “old.”
Reading the lyrics while keeping Captain Reid, the Equator or RLS in mind, it is an appropriately ironic song for a 39th birthday, a damaged new schooner and a very young captain.
This image of Thomas Moore’s (1779-1852) lyrics was scanned from the 1872 edition of his Poetical Works, which RLS owned, according to the Stevenson's Library Db.
After its six month Pacific cruise with the Stevensons, the Equator went through many metamorphoses. In 1897 it was converted to a steam tender for work in the Alaskan salmon trade, and then became a tugboat for charting underwater hazards in southeastern Alaska in 1915.
In 1923 it ran aground and sank off the Washington coast but was re-floated. It was converted to diesel in 1940, and in 1956 after 68 years of service it was finally abandoned near the mouth of the Snohomish River at Everett, Washington. In 1967 it was hauled out and in 1980 moved to the Port of Everett in Washington State.
The endearing young charms of the old Equator clearly have faded away but must still be dear to our memory of Stevenson.