 | irishgit (138)
09/11/2007 | It's a pretty good song, but the title refers to harpooning a whale and getting dragged along by it in the whaleboat, as it ran from the pain.
Nantucket was a big whaling port at the time.
(5 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree) |
 | Jed1000 (72)
06/19/2006 | I can't improve on Oscar's excellent review of this very interesting piece of music but I would add that "Nantucket sleighride" is a term coined by whalers to describe what happened after they harpooned a whale. The wounded whale would invariably take the whalers on quite a ride in the waters off the island of Nantucket before giving up the ghost. The tune is sometimes listed as "Nantucket Sleighride (to Owen Coffin)." I don't know if Owen Coffin was a whaler or someone familiar to the band.
(4 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree) |
 | oscargamblesfro (76)
06/15/2006 | A complicated piece of work, Herman Melville-like in subject matter. At their peak around the turn of the 70's, Mountain and The James Gang were probably the best American hard rock/ early metal acts going. There are light, mellow parts, faster sections, a guitar solo based on Native American music, and some intriguing lyrics. The song deals with the American whaling voyages of the middle of the 19th century, and obviously there are some parallels with Melville's masterpiece "Moby Dick." On stage this anthem would sometimes go on for a half hour or so, but this studio version is one of their best remembered tunes, and the title song for the album of the same name.
(6 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree) |
