Chanteys for Modern Pirates

New for TLAPD 2009: Ahoy, a fine pirate tune from The Rabble Rousers (Bill Collins and Gary "Chops" MacConnie)
Our mate Tom Smith is back at it again, with Zombie Pirates In Love
A fine pirate song for 2008 from Stuart "Gumbo" Walker Where's the Rum?
A charmin' little pirate music video from our pal Cap'n Joe, at the Waco (Texas) Tribune
The 2007 Theme Show had another all-pirates, all-the-time playlist for 2007 (this one more "kid-friendly" than last year's)
2006 TLAPD Theme Show - a 23-tune playlist of the best pirate songs ever (starting with Tom Smith's official TLAPD anthem, below)

The official Talk Like A Pirate Day Song

We're honored ... an' humbled ... an' all misty-eyed like, that the first song sent our way is from none other than Tom Smith, one o' the world's great filkers. Says Tom: "The melody's original, but you can hum it to almost any 3/4 pirate song, especially Steve Goodman's "Lincoln Park Pirates"."

We got this within 24 hours of TLAPD 2003. Now we know why they call him the World's Fastest Filker.

Lyrics
Download a free live concert version of the song recorded at PenguiCon 2004
Download the album version, free!
Buy Tom's albums - help feed a starving musician! NOTE: In May 2008, Tom suffered a fairly serious injury while getting ready to perform at MarCon. His hospital bills are mounting, and you can help by purchasing his music.

NEW for 2006: It's Great to Be a Pirate

This tarrrrrrriffic pirate song was written by Richard Marcus and Johnny Caruso on spec for a never-produced sequel to Disney's Aladdin, and has been sittin' in their treasure chest ever since. Then Marcus read about Talk Like A Pirate Day, and decided to release it into the wild for our fans.

Lyrics
Downloads: [mp3] [wma]

Another quarter heard from:

The Great Luke Ski

Sept. 19th, '06 brought a missive from The Great Luke Ski, comedy musician and most-requested artist of the 21st century on the Dr. Demento Show. (Luke is also one o' the background vocalists on Tom Smith's TLAPD Anthem, above).

He wanted to let us know about "You Don't Know Jack," an "original rock sea shanty" tribute to Captain Jack Sparrow, which he wrote earlier in 2006 and which stayed on Dr. Demento's top 5 countdown for 9 weeks straight.

Visit Luke's Web site for a sample of the song (and a cool fan-produced video), or to order his new DVD, "The Ego Has Landed," which comes with a three-song bonus CDR including "You Don't Know Jack.

You can also hear the complete song by crankin' up the Dr. Demento archives at http://drdemento.net/online.html - the song made its debut on June 11th, 2006.

Adds Luke, in appropriately self-promotional pirate style" If you or any of your piratical followers like it, it would mean a lot to this salty sea dog if you would let Dr. Demento know that you'd like him to play it again, by requestin' "You Don't Know Jack".

More tunes our fans have offered fer the occasion. Some are available here as downloads, some only as lyrics, and some links will send ye to the composer's Web site. Please see the note about music downloads!:

Downloadable from this site:

NEW for 2008: National Talk Like A Pirate Day, from the Nashville, TN band, Lambchop
The Cardiff Rose - a traditional pirate chanty recited (with sound effects) by Viking Jim [.mp3]
Wooden Ships, Iron Men, a chanty by Bill Donohue [.mp3]
A Pirate's Life, by GRAMMY winner Marcy Marxer.
Pirates- by Brian Lockhart (lyrics only)
Pirates Home, by Brian Piontek (lyrics only)
Frankly the Pirate (lyrics only)
The IZOD Pirate(lyrics only)
The Gaudet Family Pirate Song (lyrics only)
Pirate Birthday Song by Rita "Calico Bess" Sherwood (lyrics only)
And, from Cap'n Slappy hisself:
- I'm a Pirate (chantey for kids: [lyrics] - [YouTube video]
- The Slappy Rap [YouTube video]

Available elsewhere, and recommended by our fans

Perhaps the original: Derelict, also known as "Fifteen Men On a Dead Man's Chest (Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum," written by Y.E. Allison in 1891 and inspired by a fragment of song in Robert Louis Stevenson's classic "Treasure Island."
Lyrics to "Marooned", by The Minimum Requirements, courtesy of Matthew Klein
A bunch o' piratized song parodies by John Small of Concord, Mass:
The Ballad of Ann Bonny, by Andrew and the Bumboo Crew (ye need to sign up and they'll e-mail ye the download link)
Lyrics and chords to The Last Saskatchewan Pirate - by the popular Canadian band the Arrogant Worms (most-recommended song by visitors to our site).
Straight Outta Portsmouth - a pirate rap composed for NPR
Throw 'Em to the Sharks - by Stuart "Gumbo" Walker
... and his long-awaited 2007 sequel, Give Up Yer Gold
The Worst Pirate Song, by Ceann na Caca, purveyors of Yankee-Irish Drinking Music [mp3] (warning: adult content!)
"Pirate, Arrrr" by Kevin Brennan
Frogbeard's Sea Shanty, by Cap'n Frogbeard (note: page plays music on loading)
Blymy the Pirate (.mp3)
Barrett's Privateers, by Stan Rogers (lyrics and link to his CD)
Pirate Album - by Neal Jefferies, Andrew Cunningham and The Bumboo Crew.
Pirate Song - by Jonathan Owens. A whimsical little original ditty on this guy's MySpace page.
The Wendy Saga, by S. J. Tucker, as performed by the new band Tricky Pixie on their first CD, Tricky Pixie - Live!. Best girl pirate song ever!

About downloads

Help keep our bandwidth costs down: Instead of clicking on the links to listen to the songs on line, download them to yer own computer and ye can listen to 'em again and again!

To download, just right click (if yer a PC user) or click and hold (fer those o' the Mac persuasion) on the link, then choose "save as" or "save link target as" or whatever yer browser o' choice calls it to save the music file fer posterity.