The Handsome Cabin Boy

A recording by Kate Bush of the ‘Handsome Cabin Boy ‘on You Tube. The ancient song is about Mary Anne Talbot, one of my soldier women who was abducted and forced to travel with her rapist on board a ship to the West Indies. It is a romanticised version of her story. Here are some of the lyrics:

It’s of a pretty female
As you may understand.
Her mind being bent for rambling
Unto some foreign land,
She dressed herself in sailor’s clothes,
Or so it does appear,
And she hired with a captain
To serve him for a year.[The captain’s wife she being on board,
She seemed in great joy
To think the captain had engaged
Such a handsome cabin boy,
That now and then she’d slip him a kiss,
And she’d have liked to toy,
But ’twas the captain found out the secret
Of the handsome cabin boy.]Her cheeks they were like roses
And her hair rolled in a curl.
The sailors often smiled and said
He looked just like a girl.
But eating of the captain’s biscuit
Her colour did destroy,
And the waist did swell of pretty Nell,
The handsome cabin boy.

Have a listen !