- Thousands Tune Into Accomplished Musician Mary Knickle’s Song A Rallying Cry For Historic Town: The Battle For Lunenburg’s Soul
By Andrew Macdonald
What We’re Working On.
Upon my return from my two-week vacation, The Macdonald Notebook will hopefully chat with an accomplished Lunenburg musician Mary Knickle.
Now, that is as Lunenburg a surname if there ever was one.
She has produced a rallying cry – a venerable sea shanty – which could alone save Blockhouse Hill from a town council folly to build a massive housing subdivision on the park, created 264 years ago by the NS government all the way back in 1758.
The salvation of the park is being headed by the Friends of Blockhouse Hill, who have been boosted with a musical composition by the renowned singer Mary Knickle, who has deep Lunenburg roots. The composition is a sea shanty rallying cry to stop the 264-year-old park at Blockhouse Hill and other areas currently under development consideration in the Old Town section of Lunenburg.
Posted on YouTube, the tune has generated 2,700 viewers since it went live a month ago. There were 1000 views in its first 24 hours.
Knickle sings the main lines and is accompanied by Lunenburg residents in the chorus, on percussion and other instruments, as a backdrop. The recording was done in the Old Town Lunenburg studio of David Findlay.
Since the news file began Lunenburg mayor Matt Risser, up and quit, embattled on my political policies, and is not finishing his term. He was elected in 2020 and his town council have proposed using the Blockhouse Hill park, created in 1758 by Gov. Charles Lawrence, for a massive low-medium-high density housing development.
There is a link to Knickle’s sea shanty at the end of these lyrics:
The Battle of Lunenburg’s Soul
Down in old Lunenburg something is wrong
The ocean’s unsettled, the winds are too strong
Our ancestors’ ghosts are walking around
And rising up out of the ground
Now listen my friends there’s a time to hold back
To sail at a reach or a time when you tack
But we’ve got a council asleep at the wheel
So we mutiny now or go down with the keel
CHORUS:
And it’s aye aye, calling all hands
Pull up the anchor and hoist up the flag
Powder the cannons, get ready to roll
It’s the battle for Lunenburg’s soul.
It’s the battle for Lunenburg’s soul
A Heritage Town is something much more
Than a cheap tourist trinket you sell door to door
It needs an experienced hand at the helm
To keep the ship steady and not overwhelm
And like an old schooner, you must take it slow
Take care how you steer it, Take care how you go
But we’re headed for waters uncharted, unsound
We’ll end up a shipwreck if we don’t turn around!
CHORUS
And how can you say that it never can last
That we fetishize history, covet the past
What the hell do the people come for?
If not for the history, legends and lore!
CHORUS
And it’s aye-aye calling all hands
Pull up the anchor and hoist up the flag
Powder the cannons get ready to roll
It’s the battle for Lunenburg’s soul.
Click here to go to the YouTube page for Battle of Lunenburg’s Soul.
Friends of Blockhouse Hill have created window signs to oppose a Town of Lunenburg plan to develop a massive housing project on Blockhouse Hill, established as a park in 1758. Contributed
