This one starts with a book. Don’t be mad!!! Listen: nobody never promised nobody a book wouldn’t show up here. Nobody said that. In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick is an account of the same event that inspired the conclusion of another, like, book. It was called Moby Dick. Heard of it?!!!!

Anyway, Philbrick’s is…awesome. No spoilers, but there’s a kickass whale with “a giant blunt head” that’s “etched with scars” and it basically wipes its ass with its human tormentors. Mind you these are guys whose job it is to A) harpoon whales, then B) ride them around until they fatigue, then C) float up thereabouts the head, and D) stab them to death. And that’s sort of when the horror begins, friends. Once they hoist the carcasses onto the mother ship they crack open the cavities that hold all of the oil (the stuff that puts the “sperm” in sperm whale), crawl inside, and just commence a-scoopin’. And when they finish they kick the corpses over the edge and vroom off (boat-style).

Anyway, one day a whale decides to fuck up a ship real goodlike, and the sailors that survive don’t survive well – all quivery and warbly and full of empty prayer. (SIDEBAR: is there any other kind?)

So that’s the book part. The song to go with it could be almost anything whaley or oceany, but how about the rollicking “Greenland Whale Fisheries” by The Pogues. It’s good for imagining a bunch of dirty, grisled sailors losing their shits because a whale they didn’t kill is pulling a them on them.

MAPPING IT

Greenland can screw, though, agreed? This one belongs in the approximate location of where The Essex was rammed by that badass Dick: just below the equator and 120W.

HEARING IT

There’s a probably-better performance from the “Gin Lane, Beer Street” bootleg (Stockholm, 1995), but here’s their official recording from Red Roses for Me: