"Let Me Fish Off Cape St Mary's"

No personal notes.

Otto Kelland Dead at 99 (July 9, 2004)

Newfoundland and Labrador has lost one of its music icons. Otto Kelland, best known as the author of the haunting ballad 'Let Me Fish Off Cape St. Mary's', died Thursday evening at his home in Flatrock. He was 99 years and eleven months old. Kelland was born in 1904 in Lamaline. He spent his working life as a policeman and later warden and Superintendent at Her Majesty's Penitentiary. Otto Kelland was a prolific author, with several books and many songs to his credit. His name, however, is synonymous with the tune he wrote in 1947 that told the world about the perils of fishing from a dory.

Let Me Fish Off Cape St. Mary's -

Take me back to my Western boat
Let me fish off Cape St. Mary's
Where the hagdowns sail and the foghorns wail
With my friends the Browns and the Clearys
Let me fish off Cape St. Mary's.

Let me feel my dory lift
To the broad Atlantic combers
Where the tide rips swirl and the wild ducks whirl
Where Old Neptune calls the numbers
'Neath the broad Atlantic combers

Let me sail up Golden Bay
With my oilskins all a-streamin'
From the thunder squall when I hauled me trawl
And my old Cape Ann a-gleamin'
With my oilskins all a-streamin'

Let me view that rugged shore,
Where the beach is all a-glisten
With the Caplin spawn where from dusk to dawn
You bait your trawl and listen
To the undertow a-hissin'

When I reach that last big shoal
Where the groundswells break asunder
Where the wild sands roll to the surge's toll
Let me be a man and take it
When my dory fails to make it

Take me back to that snug green cove
Where the seas roll up their thunder
There let me rest in the earth's cool breast
Where the stars shine out their wonder -
And the seas roll up their thunder

Otto P. Kelland ©1960, Star Quality Music (SOCAN)