title: Charlie Wilson's War (film)

text: Some Reagan Era officials, including former Under Secretary of Defense Fred Ikle, have criticized some elements of the film. "The Washington Times" reported claims that the film wrongly promotes the notion that the CIA-led operation funded Osama bin Laden and ultimately produced the September 11 attacks; however, other Reagan-era officials have been more supportive of the film. Michael Johns, the former foreign policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation and White House speechwriter to President George H. W. Bush, praised the film as "the first mass-appeal effort to reflect the most important lesson of America's Cold War victory: that the Reagan-led effort to support freedom fighters resisting Soviet oppression led successfully to the first major military defeat of the Soviet Union... Sending the Red Army packing from Afghanistan proved one of the single most important contributing factors in one of history's most profoundly positive and important developments."


title: Charlie Wilson's War (film)

text: In February 2008, it was revealed that the film would not release in Russian theaters. The rights for the film were bought by Universal Pictures International (UPI) Russia. It was speculated that the film would not appear because of a certain point of view that depicted the Soviet Union unfavorably. UPI Russia head Yevgeny Beginin denied that, saying, "We simply decided that the film would not make a profit." Reaction from Russian bloggers was also negative. One wrote: "The whole film shows Russians, or rather Soviets, as brutal killers."


title: Charlie Wilson's War (film)

text: While the film depicts Wilson as an immediate advocate for supplying the mujahideen with Stinger missiles, a former Reagan administration official recalls that he and Wilson, while advocates for the mujahideen, were actually initially "lukewarm" on the idea of supplying these missiles. Their opinion changed when they discovered that rebels were successful in downing Soviet gunships with them. As such, they were actually not supplied until 1987, during the second Reagan term, and their provision was advocated mostly by Reagan defense officials and influential conservatives.


title: Charlie Wilson's War (film)

text: According to Melissa Roddy, a Los Angeles film maker with inside information from the production, the film's happy ending where Wilson is awarded came about because Tom Hanks did not feel comfortable with an original draft which ended on a scene featuring the September 11 attacks. Citing the original screenplay, which was very different from the final product, in "" Matthew Alford wrote that the film gave up "the chance to produce what at least had the potential to be the "Dr. Strangelove" of our generation".


title: Charlie Wilson's War (film)

text: In his 2011 book "Afgantsy," former British ambassador to Russia Rodric Braithwaite describes the film as "amusing but has only an intermittent connection with historical reality."


title: Charlie Wilson's War (film)

text: The film depicts the concern expressed by Charlie and Gust that Afghanistan was being neglected in the 1990s, following the Soviet withdrawal. In one of the film's final scenes, Gust dampens Charlie's enthusiasm over the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying "I'm about to give you an NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) that shows the crazies are rolling into Kandahar." As he says this, the sound of jet airliners soar overhead, a premonition of the coming 9/11 attacks.


title: Charlie Wilson's War (film)

text: George Crile III, author of the book on which the film is based, wrote that the mujahideen's victory in Afghanistan ultimately opened a power vacuum for bin Laden:


title: Charlie Wilson's War (film)

text: In 2008, Canadian journalist Arthur Kent sued the makers of the film, claiming that they had used material he produced in the 1980s without obtaining the proper authorization. On September 19, 2008, Kent announced that he had reached a settlement with the film's producers and distributors, and that he was "very pleased" with the terms of the settlement, which remain confidential.


title: Justin Vernon

text: Justin DeYarmond Edison Vernon (born April 30, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist. He is best known as the primary songwriter and frontman of indie folk band Bon Iver. Known for his distinct falsetto voice, He is also a member of the bands Volcano Choir, Big Red Machine, the Shouting Matches, and Gayngs. He was previously a member of the now-defunct band DeYarmond Edison. Vernon has received widespread acclaim for his work, predominantly with Bon Iver.


title: Justin Vernon

text: Vernon attended Memorial High School in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where he still resides today. He formed his first band, Mount Vernon, in 1997 after meeting its members at a high school Wisconsin jazz camp. They released their first local musical project in 1998. He graduated from Memorial High in 1999 and attended college at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, spending a semester in Ireland. Vernon majored in Religious Studies and minored in Women's Studies. In an interview with Stephen Colbert on "The Colbert Report", he said that he was not ready to study music.


title: Justin Vernon

text: In 2001, Vernon released his first solo album under the name "J.D Vernon," titled "Home Is". He went on to release two other solo albums, namely "Self Record" in 2005, which was followed shortly thereafter by "Hazeltons" in 2006. All of these albums are available online, but they have not seen an official release. Vernon founded the band DeYarmond Edison in 2001 while still in college. The band, which began performing in 2002, consisted of Vernon, Brad and Phil Cook, Christopher Porterfield and Joe Westerlund. The group saw varying line-up changes during its five years of existence. After playing in the Eau Claire music scene, the four bandmates decided to leave their longtime home and move to Raleigh, North Carolina, to try their musical hand in a new place. The band released two records themselves, the first self-titled in 2004 and the second titled "Silent Signs" in 2005, and an EP of unreleased material is available on their Myspace page. After nearly a year in Raleigh, Vernon left for Wisconsin in 2006 after a breakup with the band and a girlfriend. The remaining members of DeYarmond Edison went on to form the folk bands Megafaun and Field Report, and remain good friends with Vernon.


title: Justin Vernon

text: Vernon came to international prominence with "For Emma, Forever Ago", his first album as Bon Iver, which he recorded isolated in a northern Wisconsin cabin during the winter months of 2006 and 2007, while he was going through health and personal difficulties. The album was self-released by Vernon in July 2007 and after it received several positive reviews, including from "Pitchfork", the album was rereleased in February 2008 and released internationally in May of that year.


title: Justin Vernon

text: Bon Iver won Best New Artist and Best Alternative Album at the 2012 Grammy Awards, for their 2011 self-titled album. On September 25, 2012, Vernon walked away from Bon Iver temporarily, virtually putting an end to the band for the time being. When asked for reasoning, he replied, "[I'm] winding it down. I look at it like a faucet. I have to turn it off and walk away from it because so much of how that music comes together is subconscious or discovering. There's so much attention on the band, it can be distracting at times. I really feel the need to walk away from it while I still care about it. And then if I come back to it – if at all – I'll feel better about it and be renewed or something to do that."


title: Justin Vernon

text: On August 9, 2019, Vernon released "I, I", to critical acclaim. The band's fourth studio LP is vocal-heavy and features dozens of collaborators, emulating the message Vernon intended to send when working with Aaron Dessner in producing Big Red Machine.


title: Justin Vernon

text: Vernon is a part of other musical groups, including Volcano Choir, which consists of Vernon and the members of the band Collections of Colonies of Bees. In 2009 "Unmap" was released. His collaborative group Gayngs, consisting of multiple established artists, including members from Megafaun, the Rosebuds, Doomtree and Solid Gold, among others, released "Relayted" in 2010. Vernon contributed vocals as Orpheus to seven songs on Anaïs Mitchell's 2010 album "Hadestown", based on the Greek legend "Orpheus and Eurydice". He is one third of the Shouting Matches, a blues-garage rock trio, along with Laarks and Peter Wolf Crier drummer Brian Moen, and former DeYarmond Edison bandmate Phil Cook. They have recorded but not yet released a 5-track EP, "Mouthoil", and released their debut album, "Grownass Man", in 2013. At the Shouting Matches' 2013 shows in Milwaukee and Minneapolis, "Mouthoil" CDs were available as a limited release.


title: Justin Vernon

text: During the creation of Kanye West's 2010 album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy", Vernon was invited to collaborate on various songs, providing vocals on "Dark Fantasy", "Monster", "Hell Of A Life" and "Lost in the World", as well as the song "That's My Bitch" from West and Jay-Z's collaborative album "Watch the Throne" in 2011. He was also involved in West's 2013 album Yeezus, contributing to "I Am a God", "Hold My Liquor", and "I'm in It". Vernon has on several occasions served as backing vocalist for West at his live performances, notably at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 2011 and Glastonbury Festival in 2015, where West introduced Vernon as "one of the baddest white boys on the planet". In 2009, Vernon collaborated with Aaron Dessner on the song "Big Red Machine" for the AIDS benefit album "Dark Was the Night" produced by the Red Hot Organization.


title: Justin Vernon

text: He has produced albums for other artists, including Land of Talk's 2008 album "Some Are Lakes" and Kathleen Edwards' 2012 album "Voyageur".


title: Justin Vernon

text: In 2012, Vernon began Chigliak, an imprint of Jagjaguwar, dedicated to albums that have had limited or non-commercial releases.


title: Justin Vernon

text: In 2014, Jason Feathers, a collaboration with Vernon, Ryan Olson (member of Gayngs, Poliça and Marijuana Deathsquads), indie rapper Astronautalis and Bon Iver member Sean Carey (known by his stage name S. Carey), released "De Oro".


title: Justin Vernon

text: In 2017 Vernon collaborated with Mouse on Mars on their album "Dimensional People" who used his studio April Base. His voice can be heard on the song "Dimensional People III."


title: Justin Vernon

text: On June 23, 2018, Vernon joined Dead & Company on stage at Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy, Wisconsin. He performed three songs with the band: "Black Muddy River", "Friend of the Devil", and "Birdsong". Given Vernon's Wisconsin roots, it was a special appearance that highlighted the timelessness and versatility of the Dead's music.


title: Justin Vernon

text: In late August 2018, Vernon released the eponymous debut album of duet Big Red Machine alongside the National's Aaron Dessner. The 10 song self-titled album "Big Red Machine" was co-produced by Dessner, Vernon and Brad Cook, and features approximately 40 collaborators, including Bryce Dessner, Bryan Devendorf, and Richard Parry. The majority of the album was recorded in Dessner's garage studio in Hudson Valley, New York. The album seeks to convey the relational role of people in the creation of music, hence why there were so many contributing artists.


title: Justin Vernon

text: In March 2020 the Ryan Olson-produced album "Sorry You Couldn't Make It" by Swamp Dogg was released, with Vernon playing guitar on all tracks. He had previously appeared as a guest on Swamp Dogg's 2018 album "Love, Loss & Autotune". Later in 2020, Vernon collaborated with Taylor Swift to write and feature on the song "Exile", with an instrumental credit on "Peace", for her eighth studio album "Folklore". Swift released her ninth studio album "Evermore", a surprise follow-up album to "Folklore". Vernon co-wrote the title track and played other instruments as well as performed background vocals on several tracks.


title: Justin Vernon

text: Vernon founded and curated the Eaux Claires music and arts festival along with Aaron Dessner of the National.


title: Justin Vernon

text: In August 2016, Vernon and Dessner curated the second annual Eaux Claires festival. On the opening night of the festival, Bon Iver debuted their third album, "22, A Million", in front of a live audience. "22, A Million" was released on September 30, 2016, to widespread critical acclaim.


title: Peter Cook

text: Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English actor, comedian, satirist, playwright and screenwriter. He was the leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishment comedic movement that emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s.


title: Peter Cook

text: Born in Torquay, he was educated at the University of Cambridge. There he became involved with the Footlights Club, of which he later became president. After graduating he created the comedy stage revue "Beyond the Fringe", beginning a long-running partnership with Dudley Moore. In 1961, Cook opened the comedy club The Establishment in Soho, Central London. In 1965, Cook and Moore began a television career, beginning with "Not Only... But Also". Cook’s deadpan monologues contrasted with Moore’s buffoonery. They received the 1966 British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance. Following the success of the show, the duo appeared together in the films "The Wrong Box" (1966) and "Bedazzled" (1967). Cook and Moore returned to television projects continuing to the late 1970s, including co-presenting "Saturday Night Live" in the United States. From 1978 until his death in 1995, Cook no longer collaborated with Moore, apart from a few cameo appearances but continued to be a regular performer in British television and film.


title: Peter Cook

text: Referred to as "the father of modern satire" by "The Guardian" in 2005, Cook was ranked number one in the "Comedians' Comedian", a poll of more than 300 comics, comedy writers, producers and directors in the English-speaking world.


title: Peter Cook

text: Cook was born at his parents' house, "Shearbridge", in Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, Devon. He was the only son, and eldest of the three children, of Alexander Edward "Alec" Cook (1906–1984), a colonial civil servant and his wife Ethel Catherine Margaret (1908–1994), daughter of solicitor Charles Mayo. His father served as political officer and later district officer in Nigeria, then as financial secretary to the colony of Gibraltar, followed by a return to Nigeria as Permanent Secretary of the Eastern Region based at Enugu. Cook's grandfather, Edward Arthur Cook (1869–1914), had also been a colonial civil servant, traffic manager for the Federated Malay States Railway in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya. The stress he suffered in the lead-up to an interview regarding promotion led him to commit suicide. His wife, Minnie Jane (1869–1957), daughter of Thomas Wreford, of Thelbridge and Witheridge, Devon, and of Stratford-upon-Avon, of a prominent Devonshire family traced back to 1440, kept this fact secret. Peter Cook only discovered the truth when later researching his family.


title: Peter Cook

text: Cook was educated at Radley College and then went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he read French and German. As a student, Cook initially intended to become a career diplomat like his father, but Britain "had run out of colonies", as he put it. Although largely apathetic politically, particularly in later life when he displayed a deep distrust of politicians of all hues, he joined the Cambridge University Liberal Club. At Pembroke, Cook performed and wrote comedy sketches as a member of the Cambridge Footlights Club, of which he became president in 1960. His hero was fellow Footlights writer and Cambridge magazine writer David Nobbs.


title: Peter Cook

text: While still at university, Cook wrote for Kenneth Williams, providing several sketches for Williams' hit West End comedy revue "Pieces of Eight" and much of the follow-up, "One Over the Eight", before finding prominence in his own right in a four-man group satirical stage show, "Beyond the Fringe", alongside Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett, and Dudley Moore.


title: Peter Cook

text: "Beyond the Fringe" became a great success in London after being first performed at the Edinburgh Festival and included Cook impersonating the prime minister, Harold Macmillan. This was one of the first occasions satirical political mimicry had been attempted in live theatre, and it shocked audiences. During one performance, Macmillan was in the theatre and Cook departed from his script and attacked him verbally.


title: Peter Cook

text: In 1961, Cook opened The Establishment, a club at 18 Greek Street in Soho in central London, presenting fellow comedians in a nightclub setting, including American Lenny Bruce. Cook later joked that it was a satirical venue modelled on "those wonderful Berlin cabarets ... which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War". As a members-only venue, it was outside the censorship restrictions. The Establishment's regular cabaret performers were Eleanor Bron, John Bird, and John Fortune.


title: Peter Cook

text: Cook befriended and supported Australian comedian and actor Barry Humphries, who began his British solo career at the club. Humphries said in his autobiography, "My Life As Me", that he found Cook's lack of interest in art and literature off-putting. Dudley Moore's jazz trio played in the basement of the club during the early 1960s.


title: Peter Cook

text: In 1962, the BBC commissioned a pilot for a television series of satirical sketches based on the Establishment Club, but it was not immediately picked up and Cook went to New York City for a year to perform "Beyond the Fringe" on Broadway. When he returned, the pilot had been refashioned as "That Was the Week That Was" and had made a television star of David Frost, something Cook made no secret of resenting. He complained that Frost's success was based on directly copying Cook's own stage persona and Cook dubbed him "the bubonic plagiarist", and said that his only regret in life, according to Alan Bennett, had been saving Frost from drowning. This incident occurred in the summer of 1963, when the rivalry between the two men was at its height. Cook had realised that Frost's potential drowning would have looked deliberate if he had not been rescued.


title: Peter Cook

text: By the mid 1960s the satire boom was coming to an end and Cook said: "England was about to sink giggling into the sea." Around this time, Cook provided substantial financial backing for the satirical magazine "Private Eye", supporting it through difficult periods, particularly in libel trials. Cook invested his own money and solicited investment from his friends. For a time, the magazine was produced from the premises of the Establishment Club. In 1963, Cook married Wendy Snowden. The couple had two daughters, Lucy and Daisy, but the marriage ended in 1970.


title: Peter Cook

text: Cook's first regular television spot was on Granada Television's "On the Braden Beat" with Bernard Braden, where he featured his most enduring character: the static, dour and monotonal E. L. Wisty, whom Cook had conceived for Radley College's Marionette Society.


title: Peter Cook

text: Cook's comedy partnership with Dudley Moore led to "Not Only... But Also". This was originally intended by the BBC as a vehicle for Moore's music, but Moore invited Cook to write sketches and appear with him. Using few props, they created dry, absurd television that proved hugely popular and lasted for three series between 1965 and 1970. Cook played characters such as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling and the two men created their Pete and Dud alter egos. Other sketches included "Superthunderstingcar", a parody of the Gerry Anderson marionette TV shows, and Cook's pastiche of 1960s trendy arts documentaries – satirised in a parodic segment on Greta Garbo.


title: Peter Cook

text: When Cook learned a few years later that the videotapes of the series were to be wiped, a common practice at the time, he offered to buy the recordings from the BBC but was refused because of copyright issues. He suggested he could purchase new tapes so that the BBC would have no need to erase the originals, but this was also turned down. Of the original 22 programmes, only eight still survive complete. A compilation of six half-hour programmes, "The Best of... What's Left of... Not Only...But Also" was shown on television and has been released on both VHS and DVD.


title: Peter Cook

text: With "The Wrong Box" (1966) and "Bedazzled" (1967), Cook and Moore began to act in films together. Directed by Stanley Donen, the underlying story of "Bedazzled" is credited to Cook and Moore and its screenplay to Cook. A comic parody of Faust, it stars Cook as George Spigott (the Devil) who tempts Stanley Moon (Moore), a frustrated, short-order chef, with the promise of gaining his heart's desire – the unattainable beauty and waitress at his cafe, Margaret Spencer (Eleanor Bron) – in exchange for his soul, but repeatedly tricks him. The film features cameo appearances by Barry Humphries as Envy and Raquel Welch as Lust. Moore composed the soundtrack music and co-wrote (with Cook) the songs performed in the film. His jazz trio backed Cook on the theme, a parodic anti-love song, which Cook delivered in a deadpan monotone and included his familiar put-down, "you fill me with inertia".


title: Peter Cook

text: In 1968, Cook and Moore briefly switched to ATV for four one-hour programmes titled "Goodbye Again", based on the Pete and Dud characters. Cook's increasing alcoholism led him to become reliant on cue cards. The show was not a popular success, owing in part to a strike causing the suspension of the publication of the ITV listings magazine "TV Times". John Cleese was also a cast member, who would become close lifelong friends with Cook and later collaborated on multiple projects together.


title: Peter Cook

text: In 1970, Cook took over a project initiated by David Frost for a satirical film about an opinion pollster who rises to become President of Great Britain. Under Cook's guidance, the character became modelled on Frost. The film, "The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer", was not a success, although the cast contained notable names (including Cleese and Graham Chapman, who were co-writers).


title: Peter Cook

text: Cook became a favourite of the chat show circuit but his effort at hosting such a show for the BBC in 1971, "Where Do I Sit?", was said by the critics to have been a disappointment. It was axed after only three episodes and was replaced by Michael Parkinson, the start of Parkinson's career as a chat show host. Parkinson later asked Cook what his ambitions were, Cook replied jocularly "[...] in fact, my ambition is to shut you up altogether you see!"


title: Peter Cook

text: Cook and Moore fashioned sketches from "Not Only...But Also" and "Goodbye Again" with new material into the stage revue called "Behind the Fridge". This show toured Australia in 1972 before transferring to New York City in 1973, re-titled as "Good Evening". Cook frequently appeared on and off stage the worse for drink. Nonetheless, the show proved very popular and it won Tony and Grammy Awards. When it finished, Moore stayed in the United States to pursue his film acting ambitions in Hollywood. Cook returned to Britain and in 1973, married the actress and model Judy Huxtable.


title: Peter Cook

text: Later, the more risqué humour of Pete and Dud went further on such LPs as "Derek and Clive". The first recording was initiated by Cook to alleviate boredom during the Broadway run of "Good Evening" and used material conceived years before for the two characters but considered too outrageous. One of these audio recordings was also filmed and therein tensions between the duo are seen to rise. Chris Blackwell circulated bootleg copies to friends in the music business. The popularity of the recording convinced Cook to release it commercially, although Moore was initially reluctant, fearing that his rising fame as a Hollywood star would be undermined. Two further "Derek and Clive" albums were released, the last accompanied by a film.


title: Peter Cook

text: Cook and Moore hosted "Saturday Night Live" on 24 January 1976 during the show's first season. They did a number of their classic stage routines, including "One Leg Too Few" and "Frog and Peach" among others, in addition to participating in some skits with the show's ensemble cast. In 1978, Cook appeared on the British music series "Revolver" as the manager of a ballroom where emerging punk and new wave acts played. For some groups, these were their first appearances on television. Cook's acerbic commentary was a distinctive aspect of the programme. In 1979, Cook recorded comedy-segments as B-sides to the Sparks 12-inch singles "Number One Song in Heaven" and "Tryouts for the Human Race". The main songwriter Ron Mael often began with a banal situation in his lyrics and then went at surreal tangents in the style of Cook and S. J. Perelman.


title: Peter Cook

text: Cook appeared at the first three fund-raising galas staged by Cleese and Martin Lewis on behalf of Amnesty International. From the third show in 1979 the benefits were dubbed "The Secret Policeman's Balls". He performed on all three nights of the first show in April 1976, "A Poke in the Eye (With a Sharp Stick)", as an individual performer and as a member of the cast of "Beyond the Fringe", which reunited for the first time since the 1960s. He also appeared in a Monty Python sketch, taking the place of Eric Idle. Cook was on the cast album of the show and in the film, "Pleasure at Her Majesty's". He was in the second Amnesty gala in May 1977, "An Evening Without Sir Bernard Miles". It was retitled "The Mermaid Frolics" for the cast album and TV special. Cook performed monologues and skits with Terry Jones.


title: Peter Cook

text: In June 1979, Cook performed all four nights of "The Secret Policeman's Ball", teaming with Cleese. Cook performed a couple of solo pieces and a sketch with Eleanor Bron. He also led the ensemble in the finale – the "End of the World" sketch from "Beyond the Fringe".


title: Peter Cook

text: In response to a barb in "The Daily Telegraph" that the show was recycled material, Cook wrote a satire of the summing-up by Justice Cantley in the trial of former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, a summary now widely thought to show bias in favour of Thorpe. Cook performed it that same night (Friday 29 June – the third of the four nights) and the following night. The nine-minute opus, "Entirely a Matter for You", is considered by many fans and critics to be one of the finest works of Cook's career. Along with Cook, producer of the show Martin Lewis brought out an album on Virgin Records entitled "Here Comes the Judge: Live", containing the live performance together with three studio tracks that further lampooned the Thorpe trial.


title: Peter Cook

text: Although unable to take part in the 1981 gala, Cook supplied the narration over the animated opening title sequence of the 1982 film of the show. With Lewis, he wrote and voiced radio commercials to advertise the film in the UK. He also hosted a spoof film awards ceremony that was part of the world première of the film in London in March 1982.


title: Peter Cook

text: Following Cook's 1987 stage reunion with Moore for the annual American benefit for the homeless, Comic Relief (not related to the UK Comic Relief benefits), Cook repeated the reunion for a British audience by performing with Moore at the 1989 Amnesty benefit "The Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball".


title: Peter Cook

text: Cook played multiple roles on the 1977 concept album "Consequences", written and produced by former 10cc members Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. A mixture of spoken comedy and progressive rock with an environmental subtext, "Consequences" started as a single that Godley and Creme planned to make to demonstrate their invention, an electric guitar effect called the Gizmo, which they developed in 10cc. The project grew into a three-LP box set. The comedy sections were originally intended to be performed by a cast including Spike Milligan and Peter Ustinov, but Godley and Creme eventually settled on Cook once they realised he could perform most parts himself.


title: Peter Cook

text: The storyline centres on the impending divorce of ineffectual Englishman Walter Stapleton (Cook) and his French wife Lulu (Judy Huxtable). While meeting their lawyers – the bibulous Mr. Haig and overbearing Mr. Pepperman (both played by Cook) – the encroaching global catastrophe interrupts proceedings with bizarre and mysterious happenings, which seem to centre on Mr. Blint (Cook), a musician and composer living in the flat below Haig's office, to which it is connected by a large hole in the floor.


title: Peter Cook

text: Although it has since developed a cult following due to Cook's presence, "Consequences" was released as punk was sweeping the UK and proved a resounding commercial failure, savaged by critics who found the music self-indulgent. The script and story have evident connections to Cook's own life – his then-wife Judy Huxtable plays Walter's wife. Cook's struggles with alcohol are mirrored in Haig's drinking, and there is a parallel between the fictional divorce of Walter and Lulu and Cook's own divorce from his first wife. The voice and accent Cook used for the character of Stapleton are similar to those of Cook's "Beyond the Fringe" colleague, Alan Bennett, and a book on Cook's comedy, "How Very Interesting: Peter Cook's Universe and All That Surrounds It", speculates that the characters Cook plays in "Consequences" are his verbal caricatures of the four "Beyond the Fringe" cast members – the alcoholic Haig represents Cook himself, the tremulous Stapleton is Bennett, the parodically Jewish Pepperman is Miller, and the pianist Blint represents Moore.


title: Peter Cook

text: Cook starred in the LWT special "Peter Cook & Co." in 1980. The show included comedy sketches, including a "Tales of the Unexpected" parody "Tales of the Much As We Expected". This involved Cook as Roald Dahl, explaining his name had been Ronald before he dropped the "n". The cast included Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Beryl Reid, Paula Wilcox, and Terry Jones. Partly spurred by Moore's growing film star status, Cook moved to Hollywood in that year, and appeared as an uptight English butler to a wealthy American woman in a short-lived United States television sitcom, "The Two of Us", also making cameo appearances in a couple of undistinguished films.


title: Peter Cook

text: In 1983, Cook played the role of Richard III in the first episode of "Blackadder", "The Foretelling", which parodies Laurence Olivier's portrayal. In 1984, he played the role of Nigel, the mathematics teacher, in Jeannot Szwarc's film "Supergirl", working alongside the evil Selena played by Faye Dunaway. He then narrated the short film "Diplomatix" by Norwegian comedy trio Kirkvaag, Lystad, and Mjøen, which won the "Special Prize of the City of Montreux" at the Montreux Comedy Festival in 1985. In 1986, he partnered Joan Rivers on her UK talk show. He appeared as Mr Jolly in 1987 in "The Comic Strip Presents..."' episode "Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door", playing an assassin who covers the sound of his murders by playing Tom Jones records. That same year, Cook appeared in "The Princess Bride" as the "Impressive Clergyman" who officiates at the wedding ceremony between Buttercup and Prince Humperdinck, uttering the now-famous line "Mawage!" Also that year, he spent time working with humourist Martin Lewis on a political satire about the 1988 US presidential elections for HBO, but the script went unproduced. Lewis suggested that Cook team with Moore for the US Comic Relief telethon for the homeless. The duo reunited and performed their "One Leg Too Few" sketch. Cook again collaborated with Moore for the 1989 Amnesty International benefit show, "The Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball".


title: Peter Cook

text: A 1984 commercial for John Harvey & Sons showed Cook at a poolside party drinking Harvey's Bristol Cream sherry. He then says to "throw away those silly little glasses" whereupon the other party guests toss their sunglasses in the swimming pool.


title: Peter Cook

text: In 1988, Cook appeared as a contestant on the improvisation comedy show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" He was declared the winner, his prize being to read the credits in the style of a New York cab driver – a character he had portrayed in "Peter Cook & Co."


title: Peter Cook

text: Cook occasionally called in to Clive Bull's night-time phone-in radio show on LBC in London. Using the name "Sven from Swiss Cottage", he mused on love, loneliness, and herrings in a mock Norwegian accent. Jokes included Sven's attempts to find his estranged wife, in which he often claimed to be telephoning the show from all over the world, and his dislike of his fellow Norwegians' obsession with fish. While Bull was clearly aware that Sven was fictional and was happy to play along with the joke, he did not learn of the caller's real identity until later.


title: Peter Cook

text: In late 1989, Cook married for the third time, to Malaysian-born property developer Chiew Lin Chong in Torbay, Devon. She provided him with some stability in his personal life, and he reduced his drinking to the extent that for a time he was teetotal. He lived alone in a small 18th-century house in Perrins Walk, Hampstead, while she kept her own property just away.


title: Peter Cook

text: Cook returned to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in "A Life in Pieces". The 12 interviews saw Sir Arthur recount his life, based on the song "Twelve Days of Christmas". Unscripted interviews with Cook as Streeb-Greebling and satirist Chris Morris were recorded in late 1993 and broadcast as "Why Bother?" on BBC Radio 3 in 1994. Morris described them:


title: Peter Cook

text: On 17 December 1993, Cook appeared on "Clive Anderson Talks Back" as four characters – biscuit tester and alien abductee Norman House, football manager and motivational speaker Alan Latchley, judge Sir James Beauchamp, and rock legend Eric Daley. The following day, he appeared on BBC2 performing links for "Arena"'s "Radio Night". He also appeared in the 1993 Christmas special of "One Foot in the Grave" ("One Foot in the Algarve"), playing a muckraking tabloid photographer. Before the end of the following year, his mother died, and a grief-stricken Cook returned to heavy drinking. He made his last television appearance on the show "Pebble Mill at One" in November 1994.


title: Peter Cook

text: Cook was married three times. He was first married to Wendy Snowden, whom he met at university, in 1963. They had two daughters, Lucy and Daisy. They divorced in 1971. Cook then married his second wife, model and actress Judy Huxtable, in 1973, the marriage ending in 1989 after they had been separated for some years. He married his third and final wife, Chiew Lin Chong, in 1989, to whom he remained married until his death. Cook became stepfather to Chong's daughter, Nina. Chong died at the age of 71 in November 2016. Following Cook's death, Chong suffered from depression, with her grief and the challenge of bringing up Nina, who had severe learning difficulties.


title: Peter Cook

text: Cook died in a coma on 9 January 1995 at age 57 at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London, from a gastrointestinal haemorrhage, a complication probably resulting from years of heavy drinking. His body was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, and his ashes were buried in an unmarked plot behind St John-at-Hampstead, not far from his home in Perrins Walk.


title: Peter Cook

text: Dudley Moore attended Cook's memorial service at St John-at-Hampstead on 1 May 1995. He and Martin Lewis presented a two-night memorial for Cook at The Improv in Los Angeles, on 15 and 16 November 1995, to mark what would have been Cook's 58th birthday.


title: Peter Cook

text: Cook was an avid spectator of most sports and was a supporter of Tottenham Hotspur football club, though he also maintained support for his hometown team Torquay United.


title: Peter Cook

text: Cook is widely acknowledged as a strong influence on the many British comedians who followed him from the amateur dramatic clubs of British universities to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and then to radio and television. On his death, some critics choose to see Cook's life as tragic, insofar as the brilliance of his youth had not been sustained in his later years. However, Cook always maintained he had no ambitions for sustained success. He assessed happiness by his friendships and his enjoyment of life. Eric Idle said Cook had not wasted his talent, but rather that the newspapers had tried to waste him.


title: Peter Cook

text: Several friends honoured him with a dedication in the closing credits of "Fierce Creatures" (1997), a comedy film written by John Cleese about a zoo in peril of being closed. It starred Cleese alongside Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin. The dedication displays photos and the lifespan dates of Cook and of naturalist and humourist Gerald Durrell.


title: Peter Cook

text: Channel 4 broadcast "Not Only But Always", a television film dramatising the relationship between Cook and Moore, with Rhys Ifans portraying Cook. At the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, a play, "" written by Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde, examined the relationship from Moore's view. The play was transferred to London's West End at The Venue in 2006 and toured the UK the following year. During the West End run, Tom Goodman-Hill starred as Cook, with Kevin Bishop as Moore.


title: Peter Cook

text: A green plaque to honour Cook was unveiled by the Westminster City Council and the Heritage Foundation at the site of the Establishment Club, at 18 Greek Street, on 15 February 2009.


title: Peter Cook

text: A blue plaque was unveiled by the Torbay Civic Society on 17 November 2014 at Cook's place of birth, "Shearbridge", Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, with his widow Lin and other members of the family in attendance. A further blue plaque was commissioned and erected at the home of Torquay United, Plainmoor, Torquay, in 2015.


title: BNSF Railway

text: BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that provide rail connections between the western and eastern United States. BNSF trains traveled over in 2010, more than any other North American railroad.


title: BNSF Railway

text: The BNSF Railway Company is the principal operating subsidiary of parent company Burlington Northern Santa Fe, LLC. Headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, the railroad's parent company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., of Omaha, Nebraska. The current CEO is Kathryn Farmer.


title: BNSF Railway

text: According to corporate press releases, the BNSF Railway is among the top transporters of intermodal freight in North America. It also hauls bulk cargo, including enough coal to generate around 25% of the electricity produced in the United States.


title: BNSF Railway

text: The creation of BNSF started with the formation of a holding company on September 22, 1995. This new holding company purchased the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (often called the "Santa Fe") and Burlington Northern Railroad, and formally merged the railways into the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway on December 31, 1996. On January 24, 2005, the railroad's name was officially changed to BNSF Railway Company using the initials of its original name.


title: BNSF Railway

text: On November 3, 2009, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway announced it would acquire the remaining 77.4 percent of BNSF it did not already own for $100 per share in cash and stock—a deal valued at $44 billion. The company is investing an estimated $34 billion in BNSF and acquiring $10 billion in debt. On February 12, 2010, shareholders of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation voted in favor of the acquisition.


title: BNSF Railway

text: BNSF and its chief competitor, the Union Pacific Railroad, have a duopoly on all transcontinental freight rail lines in the Western, Midwestern and Southern United States and share trackage rights over thousands of miles of track.


title: BNSF Railway

text: BNSF's history dates back to 1849, when the Aurora Branch Railroad in Illinois and the Pacific Railroad of Missouri were formed. The Aurora Branch eventually grew into the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, (CB&Q), a major component of successor Burlington Northern. A portion of the Pacific Railroad became the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway (Frisco).


title: BNSF Railway

text: The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (ATSF) was chartered in 1859. It built one of the first transcontinental railroads in North America, linking Chicago and Southern California; major branches led to Texas, Denver, and San Francisco. The Interstate Commerce Commission denied a proposed merger with the Southern Pacific Transportation Company in the 1980s.


title: BNSF Railway

text: The Burlington Northern Railroad (BN) was created in 1970 through the consolidation of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, the Great Northern Railway, the Northern Pacific Railway and the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway. It absorbed the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway (Frisco) in 1980. Its main lines included Chicago-Seattle with branches to Texas (ex-Burlington) and Birmingham, Alabama (ex-Frisco), and access to the low-sulfur coal of Wyoming's Powder River Basin.


title: BNSF Railway

text: On June 30, 1994, BN and ATSF announced plans to merge; they were the largest and smallest (by track mileage) of the "Super Seven," the seven largest of the then-twelve U.S. Class I railroads. The long-rumored announcement was delayed by a disagreement over the disposition of Santa Fe Pacific Gold Corporation, a gold mining subsidiary that ATSF agreed to sell to stockholders. This announcement began the next wave of mergers, as the "Super Seven" were merged down to four in the next five years. The Illinois Central Railroad and Kansas City Southern Railway (KCS), two of the five "small" Class Is, announced on July 19 that the former would buy the latter, but this plan was called off on October 25. The Union Pacific Railroad (UP), another major Western system, started a bidding war with BN for control of the SF on October 5. The UP gave up on January 31, 1995, paving the way for the BN-ATSF merger. Subsequently, the UP acquired the Southern Pacific Transportation Company (SP) in 1996, and Eastern systems CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern Railway split Conrail in 1999.


title: BNSF Railway

text: On February 7, 1995, BN and ATSF heads Gerald Grinstein and Robert D. Krebs both announced that shareholders had approved the plan, which would save overhead costs and combine BN's coal and ATSF's intermodal strengths. Although the two systems complemented each other with little overlap, in contrast to the Santa Fe-Southern Pacific merger, which failed because it would have eliminated competition in many areas of the Southwest, BN and ATSF came to agreements with most other Class I's to keep them from opposing the merger. UP was satisfied with a single segment of trackage rights from Abilene, Kansas, to Superior, Nebraska, which BN and ATSF had both served. KCS gained haulage rights to several Midwest locations, including Omaha, East St. Louis, and Memphis, in exchange for BNSF getting similar access to New Orleans. SP, initially requesting far-reaching trackage rights throughout the West, soon agreed on a reduced plan, whereby SP acquired trackage rights on ATSF for intermodal and automotive traffic to Chicago, and other trackage rights on ATSF in Kansas, south to Texas, and between Colorado and Texas. In exchange, SP assigned BNSF trackage rights over the former Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad between El Paso and Topeka and haulage rights to the Mexican border at Eagle Pass, Texas. Regional Toledo, Peoria and Western Railway also obtained trackage rights over BN from Peoria to Galesburg, Illinois, a BN hub where it could interchange with SP (which had rights on BN dating from 1990). The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) approved the BNSF merger on July 20, 1995 (with final approval on August 23), less than a month before UP announced on August 3 that it would acquire SP. Parents Burlington Northern Inc. and Santa Fe Pacific Corporation were acquired on September 22, 1995, by the new Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation. The merger of the operating companies was held up by issues with unions; ATSF merged on December 31, 1996, into BN, which was renamed the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company.


title: BNSF Railway

text: Union Pacific's merger with Southern Pacific further enlarged the combined BNSF network. Unlike BN and ATSF, UP and SP had significant overlap, where the end of competition between the two risked creating a monopoly for freight carriage in much of the West. UP and BNSF announced in late September 1995 that, in exchange for BNSF not opposing the merger, it would obtain ownership of of line and about of trackage rights to reach these "two-to-one" shippers. Significant additions included rights over SP's Central Corridor from Denver via the Moffat Tunnel and Salt Lake City, and over Donner Pass, to the San Francisco Bay Area, with an alternate route through the Feather River Canyon along UP. The ATSF trackage in California's Central Valley was linked to BN's line into Oregon, through trackage rights over UP between Stockton and Keddie and acquisition of UP's section of the "Inside Gateway" to the beginning of BN trackage at Bieber. In Texas, BNSF received rights in several directions from the Houston area: west over UP to San Antonio, with a branch to Waco, and continuing over SP to Eagle Pass (replacing the haulage rights they had just obtained); south over UP to Brownsville; east over SP to New Orleans (including the purchase of this line east of Lake Charles); and northeast over SP to Memphis with a branch on UP to Little Rock. Ownership of a short connection between Waxahachie and Dallas also went from UP to BNSF. UP, in return, got a few short sections of trackage rights over BNSF, mainly connecting the SP at Chemult to the UP at Bend, Oregon, and connecting the SP at Mojave, California with existing UP rights on ATSF at Barstow, California. On April 18, 1996, UP, BNSF, and the Chemical Manufacturers Association entered into an agreement giving BNSF rights over the UP line between Houston and East St. Louis, paralleling the Houston-Memphis SP line, and allowing BNSF to participate in the UP's plan for directional running, in which each line would serve through trains in only one direction. The Surface Transportation Board, successor to the ICC, approved the UP-SP merger on July 3, and UP control of SP took effect on September 11, 1996. BNSF trackage rights operations began on the Central Corridor on October 10, and soon thereafter on other lines.


title: BNSF Railway

text: BNSF continued projects started by its predecessors, most notably BN's work on reopening Stampede Pass. BN had closed Stampede Pass, the Northern Pacific Railway's main line across Washington, in 1984, in favor of the ex-Great Northern Railway's Stevens Pass. BN never abandoned the line and began rehabilitating it in early 1996, and the route reopened in early December, relieving the crowded Stevens Pass. The ex-ATSF main line, now known as the Southern Transcon, has also seen steady work to add tracks, giving BNSF more capacity on this major intermodal route.


title: BNSF Railway

text: On December 20, 1999, BNSF and the recently privatized Canadian National Railway announced plans to combine as subsidiaries of a new holding company, North American Railways, which would control about of railroad. With CN's lines located primarily in Canada and, through subsidiary Illinois Central Railroad, on a north–south corridor near BNSF's eastern edge, the two systems had little overlap. The combination would have benefited both companies by expanding available cash for capacity improvements, and allowing for longer single-system movements. Shippers and the Surface Transportation Board expressed concern and surprise about the timing, since the merger that produced BNSF had been the only one in the 1990s that did not cause severe deterioration in service. The STB imposed on March 17, 2000, a 15-month moratorium on mergers involving any two Class I railroads, citing widespread opposition not only to the merger but its effects, likely starting the final round of mergers into two big systems. BNSF and CN immediately turned to the U.S. Court of Appeals, which on July 14 ruled that the STB's right to regulate mergers allowed a moratorium, and the two railroads called off the merger. The STB released its final rules on June 11, 2001, requiring any new application to merge two Class I railroads, with the exception of smaller Kansas City Southern Railway, to demonstrate that competition would be preserved and address effects of defensive moves by other carriers. As of July 2022, no further Class I mergers have taken place although Kansas City Southern and Canadian Pacific are in the approval process for a merger of the two.


title: BNSF Railway

text: On November 3, 2009, Warren Buffett said Berkshire Hathaway would buy BNSF for $44 billion. The acquisition was approved by the boards of both companies and was approved by BNSF shareholders on February 12, 2010.


title: BNSF Railway

text: With BNSF's large system, it hauls many different commodities, most notably coal and grain, as well as intermodal freight.


title: BNSF Railway

text: Predecessor Burlington Northern Railroad (BN) entered Wyoming's low-sulfur coal-rich Powder River Basin in the 1970s through construction of the Powder River Basin Joint Line with Union Pacific Railroad predecessor Chicago and North Western Transportation Company. Coal goes north in unit trains on the three-to-four-track Joint Line to Gillette or south to Orin, where older BN lines and other railroads take it in all directions to coal-burning power plants.


title: BNSF Railway

text: BNSF serves over 1,500 grain elevators, located mostly in the Midwest on former BN lines. Depending on where the markets are, this grain may move in any direction in unit trains, or wait in silos for demand to rise. Most commonly, grain may move west on the Northern Transcon to the Pacific Northwest and its export terminals, or south to ports in Texas and the Gulf of Mexico.


title: BNSF Railway

text: The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway's main contribution to BNSF was the Southern Transcon, a fast intermodal corridor connecting Southern California and Chicago. Most traffic is either trailers of trucking companies such as intermodal partner J. B. Hunt, or containers from the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. The latter begins its trip on the triple-track Alameda Corridor, shared with the Union Pacific Railroad, and then follows BNSF rails from downtown Los Angeles. Its route, the Southern Transcon, has been almost completely double-tracked, and triple-tracking has begun in areas such as Cajon Pass.


title: BNSF Railway

text: The BNSF Railway directly owns and operates track in 28 U.S. states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. The railway also operates a small amount of track in Canada, including an approximate section that runs from the U.S.-Canada border to Vancouver, British Columbia, some tracks and a yard in Winnipeg, Manitoba, approximately of joint track with the Canadian National Railway, which runs south to the U.S. border at Emerson, Manitoba, and less than a kilometer of trackage at the border in Northgate, Saskatchewan.


title: BNSF Railway

text: For administrative purposes, BNSF is divided into two regions and ten operating divisions. The North Region includes the Montana, Northwest, Twin Cities, Heartland and Powder River divisions. The South Region includes the Red River, California, Chicago, Kansas and Southwest divisions. Each division is further divided into subdivisions, which represent segments of track ranging from mainlines to branch-lines. The former Texas and Gulf divisions were combined into the Red River Division, and the former Springfield and Nebraska divisions were combined into the Heartland Division, in the spring of 2016.


title: BNSF Railway

text: Not including second, third and fourth main-line trackage, yard trackage, and siding trackage, BNSF directly owns and operates over of track. When these additional tracks are counted, the length of track which the railway directly controls rises to more than .


title: BNSF Railway

text: Additionally, BNSF Railway has gained trackage rights on more than of track throughout the United States and Canada. These rights allow the BNSF to operate its own trains with its own crews on competing railroads' main tracks. BNSF locomotives also occasionally show up on competitors' tracks throughout the United States and Canada by way of leases, mileage equalizations, and other contractual arrangements.


title: BNSF Railway

text: BNSF operates various facilities all over the United States, plus a yard in Winnipeg, to support its transportation system. Facilities operated by the railway include yards and terminals throughout its rail network, system locomotive shops to perform locomotive service and maintenance, a centralized operations center for train dispatching and network operations monitoring in Fort Worth, and regional dispatching centers.


title: BNSF Railway

text: BNSF Railway also operates numerous transfer facilities throughout the western United States to facilitate the transfer of intermodal containers, trailers, and other freight traffic. BNSF Railway has direct control over a total of 33 intermodal hubs and 23 automotive distribution facilities.


title: BNSF Railway

text: The BNSF mechanical division operates 13 locomotive maintenance facilities that perform preventive maintenance, repairs and servicing of equipment. The largest of these facilities are located in Alliance, Nebraska and Argentine Yard in Kansas City, Kansas. The mechanical division also controls 46 additional facilities responsible for car maintenance and daily running repairs.


title: BNSF Railway

text: The BNSF system mechanical division, a subset of the mechanical division, operates two maintenance-of-way work equipment shops, responsible for performing repairs and preventive maintenance to BNSF's track and equipment, in Brainerd, Minnesota and Galesburg, Illinois. The system mechanical division also operates the Western Fruit Express Company's refrigerated car repair shop in Spokane, Washington.


title: BNSF Railway

text: On October 1, 2022, BNSF Railway announced plans to construct a $1.5 billion state of the art master planned rail facility in Southern California, the first such facility developed by a Class I railroad. The Barstow International Gateway, encompassing approximately 4,500 acres (1,800 ha, 7.0 sq mi), an integrated rail facility, will be located on the west side of Barstow, California. This new facility, when built, will enable more efficient rail operations from the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach to trains for transport through the Alameda Corridor onto the BNSF mainline to the new facility, and then move across the nation on the eastbound BNSF route network.


title: BNSF Railway

text: The BNSF system is divided into 13 divisions grouped into three regions. Each division includes numerous subdivisions, normally comprising a single main line and branches. A fourteenth division, Colorado, has been consolidated with the Powder River Division, except for the Casper and Cody Subdivisions, which were transferred to the Montana Division.


title: BNSF Railway

text: BNSF directly operates the BNSF Railway Line for Metra in Chicago and the Sounder in the Puget Sound Region — using BNSF-supplied crews in addition to running over its rails. The company's network additionally hosts other commuter trains, including: Metrolink in Southern California, and the Northstar Line in Minneapolis.


title: BNSF Railway

text: The line used by New Mexico Rail Runner Express was sold to the state of New Mexico, but BNSF retained all freight rights on the line and operates freight trains as needed.


title: BNSF Railway

text: Metra's cars that were originally purchased by BNSF predecessor Chicago Burlington & Quincy have letterboards above the doors. In about 2011, about 15 of the remaining cars had the original "BURLINGTON" lettering restored, while the rest now read "BNSF RAILWAY". Other Metra cars assigned to BNSF have the current BNSF "swoosh" logo next to the door.


title: BNSF Railway

text: Many Amtrak routes use BNSF rails: the "Amtrak Cascades", "California Zephyr", "Carl Sandburg", "Coast Starlight", "Empire Builder", "Heartland Flyer", "Illinois Zephyr", "Lincoln Service", "Pacific Surfliner", "San Joaquin", "Southwest Chief", "Sunset Limited", and "Texas Eagle".


title: BNSF Railway

text: After the 2015 Oxnard train derailment, BNSF loaned 40 of their AC4400CWs to Metrolink while their Rotem cab cars received upgrades. These 40 units were converted to PTC. The locomotives have since been returned after the cab cars went back into service.


title: BNSF Railway

text: Although it does not have a steam program like the Union Pacific, the BNSF has allowed for the Southern Pacific 4449, St. Louis–San Francisco 1522, Santa Fe 3751, Spokane, Portland and Seattle 700 and Milwaukee Road 261 steam locomotives to operate excursions over their rails.


title: BNSF Railway

text: BNSF has received E.H. Harriman Award for safety multiple times. But a number of accidents and incidents have occurred on the railway since its inception.


title: BNSF Railway

text: As one of the leading supporters of the Operation Lifesaver program to promote safety at railway crossings and rights-of-way, the BNSF Railway, in 2000, established a grade-crossing closure program. This program, in which BNSF works with communities and landowners to identify unnecessary or redundant crossings, has helped close more than 2,900 of BNSF's railway crossings throughout the United States. Due to the program, BNSF has been the industry leader in lowering the number of grade-crossing collisions.


title: BNSF Railway

text: BNSF contracts with News Link, a small business in Lincoln, Nebraska, to publish employee newsletters focused on safety for some of the railroad's divisions and shops. These newsletters vary in length from four to 28 pages, published ranging from monthly to quarterly.


title: BNSF Railway

text: In 2014, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration ordered BNSF to pay over $526,000 to workers who had been terminated in 2010 and 2011 after revealing workplace injuries at the terminal in Havre, Montana, which is in contravention of provisions of the Federal Railroad Safety Act protecting whistleblowers.


title: BNSF Railway

text: In August 2016, a "huge number" of used hypodermic drug needles were found along BNSF railroad bridge in between the University Park and St. Johns neighborhoods of Portland, Oregon that has become an encampment for unhoused individuals. According to a conductor quoted by "The Oregonian" "Pretty much see people down there at all hours of the night. We report them but nobody does anything."


title: BNSF Railway

text: According to the 2007 "BNSF Annual Report", at the end of 2007 the railway had more than 40,000 employees; 6,400 locomotives (8,359 as of 2018); and 85,338 freight cars (72,369 as of 2018).


title: BNSF Railway

text: At the end of 2007, the average age (from date of manufacture) was 15 years for the BNSF's locomotive fleet and 14 years for the freight car fleet.


title: BNSF Railway

text: On January 24, 2006, BNSF announced a US$2.4 billion program of infrastructure upgrades for 2006. The upgrade program includes: double- and triple-tracking of track and a second mainline track through New Mexico's Abo Canyon on the former ATSF transcontinental line; expanding the Lincoln, Nebraska, classification yard and double- and triple-tracking of track in Wyoming's Powder River Basin region; expansions at eight of the railroad's larger intermodal facilities, and extending many sidings and expanding and improving refueling facilities. In making the announcement, BNSF chairman Matthew K. Rose cited improvements in the company's return on invested capital, and expressed hope for continued improvement. In March, 2008, the railroad was completing the triple-tracking of Cajon Pass in California, creating four tracks through the pass—three BNSF (former Santa Fe and newly installed) and one Union Pacific (former Southern Pacific).


title: BNSF Railway

text: Most of BNSF's high-horsepower road locomotives are painted in "Heritage" schemes – primarily based on BN predecessor Great Northern Railway's colors of Omaha Orange and Pullman Green, with yellow striping and silver underframes. Since 2005, BNSF's locomotives feature black instead of dark green paint.


title: BNSF Railway

text: Many locomotives retain their original paint schemes, but this is gradually changing, as these units are now either being retired, or rebuilt and repainted in the Heritage III and Heritage IV schemes, respectively.


title: BNSF Railway

text: The first locomotive to bear BNSF lettering was BN SD70MAC No. 9647, introduced in late August 1995, just as the Interstate Commerce Commission was approving the merger. VMV Enterprises in Paducah, Kentucky painted it in a one-of-a-kind commemorative scheme, combining Santa Fe's "Warbonnet" with BN's "Executive" colors of dark "Grinstein green" and cream. "BNSF" replaced "SANTA FE" on the front of the unit, and "Burlington Northern Santa Fe" was painted on the side.


title: BNSF Railway

text: By January 1996, BNSF had begun painting locomotives originally ordered for BN and ATSF patched with “BNSF” on the front and sides. Then, in late May, the company introduced a new design on BN SD60M 9297, painted mainly in BN predecessor Great Northern Railway's pre-1967 colors of orange and dark "Pullman green," but also incorporating red and silver, and said to represent all major BN predecessors and Santa Fe. On the front was a new logo, placing "Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway" in the Santa Fe cross. Some of the striping details were different on each side, and employees voted for the simpler right-side design, which, with some minor changes, became the new scheme, replacing the BN colors. However, president and CEO Robert Krebs said the railroad was big enough for two designs, and Santa Fe's "Warbonnet" (with "BNSF" instead of "Santa Fe" on the front) remained alongside the new Heritage I scheme.


title: BNSF Railway

text: On January 24, 2005, as part of its tenth-anniversary celebration, the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway was renamed BNSF Railway and adopted a new logo. By March, the logo had been applied to the sides and fronts of six ES44DCs, and on April 11, BNSF officially chose the design it had applied to No. 7701. The New Image scheme is also referred to as Heritage III.


title: BNSF Railway

text: Since 2006, BNSF's locomotives designated for yard work or local trains have been painted in the Heritage IV scheme. Somewhat of a simplified form of the Heritage III scheme, Heritage IV is virtually identical to the original Heritage I scheme, with black instead of dark green, and the current BNSF logo.


title: Pritzker family

text: The Pritzker family is an American family engaged in entrepreneurship and philanthropy, and one of the wealthiest families in the United States of America (staying in the top 10 of "Forbes" magazine's "America's Richest Families" list since the magazine began such listings in 1982). Its fortune arose in the 20th century—particularly through the founding and expansion of the Hyatt hotel corporation.


title: Pritzker family

text: Family members still largely own Hyatt, and prior to its sale to Berkshire Hathaway, the Marmon Group, a conglomerate of manufacturing and industrial service companies. Their holdings also have included the Superior Bank of Chicago (which collapsed in 2001), the TransUnion credit bureau, Braniff airlines, "McCall's" magazine, and the Royal Caribbean cruise line.


title: Pritzker family

text: In 1995, Jay Pritzker, the cofounder of Hyatt, stepped down and Thomas Pritzker took control of The Pritzker Organization. When the former died in 1999, the family split the business into 11 pieces worth $1.4 billion each (and chose to settle a lawsuit from two family members, who apparently received $500 million each, in 2005). By 2011, the dissolution had been completed, and the cousins had gone their separate ways, with some pursuing business, and others philanthropic or artistic ventures. According to "Inside Philanthropy", there are many Pritzkers, with many different vehicles or foundations for their philanthropic giving.


title: Sea shanty

text: A sea shanty, chantey, or chanty () is a genre of traditional folk song that was once commonly sung as a work song to accompany rhythmical labor aboard large merchant sailing vessels. The term "shanty" most accurately refers to a specific style of work song belonging to this historical repertoire. However, in recent, popular usage, the scope of its definition is sometimes expanded to admit a wider range of repertoire and characteristics, or to refer to a "maritime work song" in general.


title: Sea shanty

text: From Latin "cantare" via French "chanter", the word "shanty" emerged in the mid-19th century in reference to an appreciably distinct genre of work song, developed especially on merchant vessels, that had come to prominence in the decades prior to the American Civil War although found before this. Shanty songs functioned to synchronize and thereby optimize labor, in what had then become larger vessels having smaller crews and operating on stricter schedules. The practice of singing shanties eventually became ubiquitous internationally and throughout the era of wind-driven packet and clipper ships.


title: Sea shanty

text: Shanties had antecedents in the working chants of British and other national maritime traditions, such as those sung while manually loading vessels with cotton in ports of the southern United States. Shanty repertoire borrowed from the contemporary popular music enjoyed by sailors, including minstrel music, popular marches, and land-based folk songs, which were then adapted to suit musical forms matching the various labor tasks required to operate a sailing ship. Such tasks, which usually required a coordinated group effort in either a pulling or pushing action, included weighing anchor and setting sail.


title: Sea shanty

text: The shanty genre was typified by flexible lyrical forms, which in practice provided for much improvisation and the ability to lengthen or shorten a song to match the circumstances. Its hallmark was call and response, performed between a soloist and the rest of the workers in chorus. The leader, called the "shantyman", was appreciated for his piquant language, lyrical wit, and strong voice. Shanties were sung without instrumental accompaniment and, historically speaking, they were only sung in work-based rather than entertainment-oriented contexts. Although most prominent in English, shanties have been created in or translated into other European languages.


title: Sea shanty

text: The switch to steam-powered ships and the use of machines for shipboard tasks, by the end of the 19th century, meant that shanties gradually ceased to serve a practical function. Their use as work songs became negligible in the first half of the 20th century. Information about shanties was preserved by veteran sailors and by folklorist song-collectors, and their written and audio-recorded work provided resources that would later support a revival in singing shanties as a land-based leisure activity. Commercial musical recordings, popular literature, and other media, especially since the 1920s, have inspired interest in shanties among s. The modern performance contexts of these songs have affected their forms, their content, and the way they are understood as cultural and historical artifacts. Recent performances range from the "traditional" style of practitioners within a revival-oriented, maritime music scene, to the adoption of shanty repertoire by musicians in a variety of popular styles.


title: Sea shanty

text: The origin of the word "shanty" is unknown, though several inconclusive theories have been put forth. One of the earliest and most consistently offered derivations is from the French , "to sing."


title: Sea shanty

text: The phenomenon of using songs or chants, in some form, to accompany sea labor preceded the emergence of the term "shanty" in the historical record of the mid-19th century. One of the earliest published uses of this term for such a song came in G. E. Clark's "Seven Years of a Sailor's Life", 1867. Narrating a voyage in a clipper ship from Bombay to New York City in the early 1860s, Clark wrote, "The anchor came to the bow with the chanty of 'Oh, Riley, Oh,' and 'Carry me Long,' and the tug walked us toward the wharf at Brooklyn." While telling of another voyage out of Provincetown, Mass. in 1865, he wrote:


title: Sea shanty

text: Every man sprang to duty. The cheerful chanty was roared out, and heard above the howl of the gale. The cable held very hard, and when it surged over, the windlass sent the men flying about the deck, as if a galvanic battery had been applied to their hands. The vessel's head was often buried in the solid seas, and the men, soaked and sweating, yelled out hoarsely, "Paddy on the Railway," and "We're Homeward Bound," while they tugged at the brakes, and wound the long, hard cable in, inch by inch.


title: Sea shanty

text: Additionally, Clark referred to a lead singer as a "chanty man", and he referred to stevedores unloading cargo from the vessels as "chanty men" and a "chanty gang".


title: Sea shanty

text: This reference to singing stevedores as "chanty men" connects the genre to a still earlier reference to "chanty-man" as the foreman of a work gang and the lead singer of their songs. Around the late 1840s, Charles Nordhoff observed work gangs engaged in a type of labor called "cotton-screwing" in Mobile Bay. Characterized by Nordhoff as one of the heaviest sorts of labor, cotton-screwing involved the use of large jack-screws to compress and force cotton bales into the holds of outbound ships. Work gangs consisted of four men, who timed their exertions in turning the jack-screw to songs called "chants".


title: Sea shanty

text: Singing, or "chanting" as it is called, is an invariable accompaniment to working in cotton, and many of the screw-gangs have an endless collection of songs, rough and uncouth, both in words and melody, but answering well the purposes of making all pull together, and enlivening the heavy toil. The foreman is the "chanty-man", who sings the song, the gang only joining in the chorus, which comes in at the end of every line, and at the end of which again comes the pull at the screw handles ...<br>


title: Sea shanty

text: The "chants", as may be supposed, have more of rhyme than reason in them. The tunes are generally plaintive and monotonous, as are most of the capstan tunes of sailors, but resounding over the still waters of the Bay, they had a fine effect.


title: Sea shanty

text: According to research published in the journal "American Speech", Schreffler argues that "chanty" may have been a back derivation from "chanty-man", which, further, initially carried the connotation of a singing stevedore (as in Nordhoff's account, above). The historical record shows "shanty" (and its variant spellings) gaining currency only in the late nineteenth century; the same repertoire was earlier referred to as "song," "chant," or "chaunt."


title: Sea shanty

text: The spelling of the term appeared quite inconsistently until after the 1920s. While the above noted, American sources used a "ch" spelling, the next published appearances of the term, coming in two very similar articles from British publications from 1868 and 1869, used "shanty". Early writers who gave substantial due to the genre (i.e. those who were not mentioning shanties only in passing) often used the "ch" spelling, regardless of their nationality.


title: Sea shanty

text: Addressing the Royal Musical Association in 1915, English musicologist Richard Runciman Terry put forward his belief that the genre should be spelled with "sh" on the grounds that the spelling should correspond obviously to pronunciation. In his subsequent shanty collections he used this spelling consistently. American shanty-collector Joanna Colcord made great use of Terry's first book (corresponding with the author, and reprinting some of his material), and she, too, deemed it sensible to adopt the "sh" spelling for her 1924 collection.


title: Sea shanty

text: Terry's works were the source for those among the earliest of commercial recordings (see below) and popular performances of shanties—especially because, unlike many earlier works, they provided scores with piano accompaniment and sufficiently long, performance-ready sets of lyrics. Colcord's work was also very handy in this regard and was used as a source by prominent British folk revival performers like A. L. Lloyd and Ewan MacColl. Terry and Colcord's works were followed by numerous shanty collections and scores that also chose to use the "Sh" spelling, whereas others remained insistent that "ch" be retained to preserve what they believed to be the etymological origins of the term. By the late 20th century, the "Sh" spelling had become the more or less standard one in Commonwealth English, whereas "ch" spellings remained in common use mostly in the United States.


title: Sea shanty

text: During the 1920s, the phrase came into regular use by lay commentators, though it was not documented in use by sailors themselves, nor has it been used by knowledgeable authors on the subject such as Stan Hugill. The term "sea shanty/chantey" has become a staple of popular usage, where it helps to disambiguate the work song genre from other meanings of the word "shanty". For example, the "ice fishing shanty," despite its reference to marine activity, is not related.


title: Sea shanty

text: Singing or chanting has been done to accompany labor on seagoing vessels among various cultural groups at various times and in various places. A reference to what seems to be a sailor's hauling chant in "The Complaynt of Scotland" (1549) is a popularly cited example. Liberal use of the word "shanty" by folklorists of the 20th century expanded the term's conceptual scope to include "sea-related work songs" in general. However, the shanty genre is distinct among various global work song phenomena. Its formal characteristics, specific manner of use, and repertoire cohere to form a picture of a work song genre that emerged in the Atlantic merchant trade of the early 19th century. As original work songs, shanties flourished during a period of about fifty years.


title: Sea shanty

text: There is a notable lack of historical references to anything like shanties, as they would come to be known, in the entirety of the 18th century. In the second half of the 18th century, English and French sailors were using simple chants to coordinate a few shipboard tasks that required unanimous effort. A dictionary of maritime terms, in describing the anchor-hauling mechanical device known as a windlass, noted the use of such a chant. This particular old-fashioned style of windlass was one that required workers to continually remove and re-insert "handspikes" (wooden leverage bars) into the device to turn its gears.


title: Sea shanty

text: It requires, however, some dexterity and address to manage the handspec to the greatest advantage; and to perform this the sailors must all rise at once upon the windlass, and, fixing their bars therein, give a sudden jerk at the same instant, in which movement they are regulated by a sort of song or howl pronounced by one of their number.


title: Sea shanty

text: Rather than the well-developed songs that characterize shanties, this "howl" and others were evidently structured as simple chants in the manner of "1, 2, "3"!" The same dictionary noted that French sailors said just that, and gave some indication what an English windlass chant may have been like:


title: Sea shanty

text: "UN, deux, troi", an exclamation, or song, used by seamen when hauling the bowlines, the greatest effort being made at the last word. English sailors, in the same manner, call out on this occasion,—haul-in—haul-two—haul-belay!


title: Sea shanty

text: Such simple or brief chants survived into the 19th century. First-hand observers such as Frederick Pease Harlow, a sailor of the 1870s, attested to their ubiquity, saying that they were brought into use whenever a brief task required one. In historical hindsight these items have come to be generically called "sing-outs"; yet even before the known advent of the term "shanty", Richard Henry Dana referred to "singing out".


title: Sea shanty

text: The wind was whistling through the rigging, loose ropes flying about; loud and, to me, unintelligible orders constantly given and rapidly executed, and the sailors "singing out" at the ropes in their hoarse and peculiar strains.


title: Sea shanty

text: Later writers distinguished such chants and "sing-outs" from shanties proper, but in the case of relatively "simple" shanties—such as those for hauling sheets and tacks (see below)—there is a grey area. This has led some to believe that the more sophisticated shanties of later years developed from the more primitive chants.


title: Sea shanty

text: A step up in sophistication from the sing-outs was represented by the first widely established sailors' work song of the 19th century, "Cheer'ly Man". Although other work-chants were evidently too variable, non-descript, or incidental to receive titles, "Cheer'ly Man" appears referred to by name several times in the early part of the century, and it lived on alongside later-styled shanties to be remembered even by sailors recorded by James Madison Carpenter in the 1920s. "Cheer'ly Man" makes notable appearances in the work of both Dana (sea experience 1834–36) and Herman Melville (sea experience 1841–42).


title: Sea shanty

text: When we came to mast-head the top-sail yards, with all hands at the halyards, we struck up "Cheerily, men," with a chorus which might have been heard half way to Staten Land.


title: Sea shanty

text: The decks were all life and commotion; the sailors on the forecastle singing, "Ho, cheerly men!" as they catted the anchor;


title: Sea shanty

text: Although "Cheer'ly Man" could be considered more "developed" than the average sing-out, in its form it is yet different from the majority of shanties that are known to us today, suggesting that it belonged to an earlier stage of sailors' songs that preceded the emergence of "modern" shanties.


title: Sea shanty

text: Detailed reference to shipboard practices that correspond to shanty-singing was extremely rare before the 1830s. In the first place, singing while working was generally limited to merchant ships, not war ships. The Royal Navy banned singing during work—it was thought the noise would make it harder for the crew to hear commands—though capstan work was accompanied by the bosun's pipe, or else by fife and drum or fiddle. A writer from the 1830s made this clear:


title: Sea shanty

text: On board a well-disciplined man-of-war, no person except the officers is allowed to speak during the performance of the various evolutions. When a great many men are employed together, a fifer or a fiddler usually plays some of their favourite tunes; and it is quite delightful to see the glee with which Jack will "stamp and go," keeping exact time to "Jack's the lad," or the "College Hornpipe."


title: Sea shanty

text: One of the earliest references to shanty-like songs that has been discovered was made by an anonymous "steerage passenger" in a log of a voyage of an East India Company ship, entitled "The Quid" (1832). Crew and passengers alike were noted to join in at heaving the capstan around. They were said to sing "old ditties", along with which a few verses to one or more songs is given. While this practice was analogous to the practice of what is later called singing "capstan shanties", the form of these verses is not particularly similar to later shanties. These songs do not appear to correspond to any shanty known from later eras. It is possible that the long, monotonous task of heaving the capstan had long inspired the singing of time-passing songs of various sorts, such as those in "The Quid". For example, the composition of capstan-style "sailor songs" by Norwegian poet Henrik Wergeland as early as 1838 implies that Scandinavians also used such songs. However, these older songs can be distinguished from the later type of songs that were given the label "shanty", suggesting there were other formative influences that gave birth to an appreciably new and distinctly recognized phenomenon.


title: Sea shanty

text: Use of the term "shanty", once this paradigm for singing had become a comprehensive practice for most tasks, incorporated all manner of shipboard work songs under its definition, regardless of style and origin. Yet, shanties were of several types, and not all had necessarily developed at the same time. "Capstan shanties", some of which may have developed out of the earlier capstan songs discussed above, are quite variable in their form and origins. On the other hand, the repertoire of the so-called "halyard shanties" coheres into a consistent form. The distinctive "double-pull" format that typifies most of these songs—also at times used, with slight changes, for pumps, windlass, and capstan, too—was a later development that appears to owe much to African-American work songs.


title: Sea shanty

text: In the first few decades of the 19th century, European-American culture, especially the Anglophone—the sailors' "Cheer'ly Man" and some capstan songs notwithstanding—was not known for its work songs. By contrast, African workers, both in Africa and in the New World, were widely noted to sing while working. According to Gibb Schreffler, an Associate Professor of Music at Pomona College, European observers found African work-singers remarkable (as Schreffler infers from tone of their descriptions). Schreffler further infers that work songs may have had far less currency among European culture, based on the scant evidence of work-singing aboard European ships in the century prior. Such references begin to appear in the late 18th century, whence one can see the cliché develop that Black Africans "could not" work without singing. For example, an observer in Martinique in 1806 wrote, "The negroes have a different air and words for every kind of labour; sometimes they sing, and their motions, even while cultivating the ground, keep time to the music." So while the depth of the African-American work song traditions is now recognized, in the early 19th century they stood in stark contrast to the paucity of such traditions among European-Americans. Thus while European sailors had learned to put short chants to use for certain kinds of labor, the paradigm of a comprehensive system of developed work songs for most tasks may have been contributed by the direct involvement of or through the imitation of African-Americans. The work contexts in which African-Americans sang songs comparable to shanties included:


title: Sea shanty

text: During the first half of the 19th century, some of the songs African-Americans sang also began to appear in use for shipboard tasks, i.e. as shanties.


title: Sea shanty

text: An example of a work song that was shared between several contexts, including, eventually, sailors working, is "Grog Time o' Day". This song, the tune of which is now lost, was sung by: Jamaican stevedores at a capstan in 1811; Afro-Caribbeans rowing a boat in Antigua ca.1814; Black stevedores loading a steamboat in New Orleans in 1841; and a European-American crew hauling halyards on a clipper-brig out of New York ca.1840s. Other such multi-job songs were: "Round the Corn(er), Sally", "Fire Down Below", "Johnny Come Down to Hilo", "Hilo, Boys, Hilo", "Tommy's Gone Away", "The Sailor Likes His Bottle-O", "Highland Laddie", "Mudder Dinah", "Bully in the Alley", "Hogeye Man", "Good Morning, Ladies, All", "Pay Me the Money Down", "Alabama, John Cherokee", "Yankee John, Stormalong", and "Heave Away (My Johnnies)".


title: Sea shanty

text: While the non-sailor occupations noted above were mainly within the purview of Black laborers, the last of them, cotton-screwing, was one in which non-Blacks also began to engage by the 1840s. These workers often came from the ranks of sailors of the trans-Atlantic cotton trade, including sailors from Britain and Ireland who, wanting to avoid the cold winter seasons on the Atlantic, went ashore to engage in the well-paid labor of cotton-screwing. A European-American who did just that in 1845 in New Orleans wrote,


title: Sea shanty

text: The day after our arrival the crew formed themselves into two gangs and obtained employment at screwing cotton by the day ... With the aid of a set of jack-screws and a ditty, we would stow away huge bales of cotton, singing all the while. The song enlivened the gang and seemed to make the work much easier.


title: Sea shanty

text: Shanty-writer Stan Hugill called Mobile Bay—one of the main cotton outports—a "shanty mart", at which sailors and laborers of different cultural backgrounds traded their songs.


title: Sea shanty

text: Commenters on the ethnic or national origins of shanties, writing in the 19th century when shanties were still in wide use, generally supposed the genre to originate in the United States and recognized parallels to African-American singing—as opposed to earlier English traditions from Britain. An early article to offer an opinion on the origin of shanties (though not calling them by that name), appearing in Oberlin College's student paper in 1858, drew a comparison between Africans' singing and sailor work songs.


title: Sea shanty

text: Along the African coast you will hear that dirge-like strain in all their songs, as at work or paddling their canoes to and from shore, they keep time to the music. On the southern plantations you will hear it also, and in the negro melodies every where, plaintive and melodious, sad and earnest. It seems like the dirge of national degradation, the wail of a race, stricken and crushed, familiar with tyranny, submission and unrequited labor ... And here I cannot help noticing the similarity existing between the working chorus of the sailors and the dirge-like negro melody, to which my attention was specially directed by an incident I witnessed or rather heard.


title: Sea shanty

text: The author went on to relate an incident in which he once heard "a well known strain of music", finding to his surprise that it was being sung by Black men rowing canoes. He claimed they were singing, "Heigh Jim along, Jim along Josey, Heigh Jim along, Jim along Jo!" The implication is that this song was similar to a sailor song, probably the well-known shanty, "Haul Away, Joe" or "Haul Away for Rosie", viz.: "Way, haul away; O, haul away, my Rosey; Way, haul away; O, haul away, "Joe"." The writer did not make a further connection to the minstrel song "Jim Along Josey", a relationship to which is obvious, although it is unknown whether this was the inspiration for the shanty or vice versa.


title: Sea shanty

text: In much of the shanty repertoire known today one finds parallels to the minstrel songs that came to popularity from the 1840s. The poetic meter of the couplets of many minstrel songs is identical to those in shanties, and the "non sequitur"-type "floating verses" of those songs were heavily borrowed. In an influential early article about shanties, New York journalist William L. Alden drew a comparison between shanties and "both" authentic African-American songs and the quasi-African-American minstrel songs:


title: Sea shanty

text: The old sailor songs had a peculiar individuality. They were barbaric in their wild melody. The only songs that in any way resemble them in character are "Dixie", and two or three other so-called negro songs by the same writer. This man, known in the minstrel profession as "Old Emmett", caught the true spirit of the African melodies—the lawless, half-mournful, half-exulting songs of the Kroomen. These and the sailor songs could never have been the songs of civilized men ...


title: Sea shanty

text: Undoubtedly many sailor songs have a negro origin. They are the reminiscences of melodies sung by negroes stowing cotton in the holds of ships in Southern ports. The "shanty-men," those hards of the forecastle, have preserved to some extent the meaningless words of negro choruses, and have modified the melodies so as to fit them for salt-water purposes. Certain other songs were unmistakably the work of English sailors of an uncertain but very remote period.


title: Sea shanty

text: Alden was not writing as a research historian, but rather as an observer of the then-current shanty-singing. His, then, was an impression of shanties based on their style and manner of performance, and he was writing at a time when shanties had yet to become framed by writers and media as belonging to any canon of national "folk music".


title: Sea shanty

text: An English author of the period, William Clark Russell, expressed his belief in several works that shanties were American in origin.


title: Sea shanty

text: I think it may be taken that we owe the sailors' working song as we now possess it to the Americans. How far do these songs date back? I doubt if the most ancient amongst them is much older than the century. It is noteworthy that the old voyagers do not hint at the sailors singing out or encouraging their efforts by choruses when at work. In the navy, of course, this sort of song was never permitted. Work proceeded to the strains of a fiddle, to the piping of the boatswain and his mates, or in earlier times yet, to the trumpet. The working song then is peculiar to the Merchant Service, but one may hunt through the old chronicles without encountering a suggestion of its existence prior to American independence and to the establishment of a Yankee marine.


title: Sea shanty

text: As time wore on and shanties were established as an indispensable tool aboard the ships of many nations carrying heterogeneous crew, inspiration from several national and cultural traditions fed into the repertoire and their style was subsequently shaped by countless individuals. Whatever their fundamental origins, by the late 19th century shanties constituted the heritage of international seamen, with little or no necessary national associations.


title: Sea shanty

text: Writers have characterized the origin of shanties (or perhaps a "revival" in shanties, as William Main Doerflinger theorized) as belonging to an era immediately following the War of 1812 and up to the American Civil War. This was a time when there was relative peace on the seas and shipping was flourishing. Packet ships carried cargo and passengers on fixed schedules across the globe. Packet ships were larger and yet sailed with fewer crew than vessels of earlier eras, in addition to the fact that they were expected on strict schedules. These requirements called for an efficient and disciplined use of human labor. American vessels, especially, gained reputations for cruelty as officers demanded high results from their crew. The shanties of the 19th century could be characterized as a sort of new "technology" adopted by sailors to adapt to this way of shipboard life.


title: Sea shanty

text: Recent research has considered a wider range of 19th century sources than had been possible by 20th-century writers. The evidence from these sources suggests that even in the mid-1830s the genre was still developing, which shifts the period of the rise and flourishing of shanties to a bit later than was previously accepted. The general silence of the historical record on modern shanties until as late as the 1840s, even as shipping shifted to the even faster clipper ships, suggests that they may not have come into widespread use until the middle of the century. They received a boost from the heavy emigrant movement of gold rushes in California and Australia. Popular shanties of the 1850s included "A Hundred Years Ago", "One More Day", "Santiana", "Haul on the Bowline", "Across the Western Ocean", and especially "Stormalong".


title: Sea shanty

text: By the time of the American Civil War, the shanty form was fully developed, after which its repertoire grew and its implementation was widespread and rather standardized. The decade of the 1870s represents the zenith of the genre; those sailors who first went to sea after that decade are considered not to have seen shanties in their prime. In 1882, due to the proliferation of steamships, Alden was already lamenting the passing of shanties.


title: Sea shanty

text: The "shanty-man"—the chorister of the old packet ship—has left no successors. In the place of a rousing "pulling song," we now hear the rattle of the steam-winch; and the modern windlass worked by steam, or the modern steam-pump, gives us the clatter of cogwheels and the hiss of steam in place of the wild choruses of other days. Singing and steam are irreconcilable. The hoarse steam-whistle is the nearest approach to music that can exist in the hot, greasy atmosphere of the steam-engine.


title: Sea shanty

text: Other writers echoed Alden's lament through and after the 1880s; the first collections of shanties appeared in that decade, in one sense as a response to what the authors believed was a vanishing art. Shanties continued to be used to some extent so long as windjammers were, yet these were comparatively few in the early 20th century.


title: Sea shanty

text: Folklorists of the first decade of the 20th century, especially those from Britain, included shanties among their interests in collecting folk songs connected with the idea of national heritage. Cecil Sharp and his colleagues among the English Folk-Song Society were among the first to take down the lyrics and tunes of shanties directly from the lips of veteran sailors and to publish them more or less faithfully. Their efforts were matched by a number of less-rigorous articles and published collections issued by former sailors themselves. By the 1920s, the body of literature on shanties had grown quite large, yet it was of variable quality. Most editors presented "ideal" versions of songs—not reflecting any one way the shanty may have been sung, but rather a composite picture, edited for print. Bowdlerization and omission of lyrics were typical. Moreover, few authors were trained folklorists and even fewer maintained a critical historical methodology. Editors customarily published fanciful, often nostalgic introductions to the material that included unsubstantiated statements. As a result, though much of the vanishing shanty repertoire was preserved in skeletal form, aspects of the genre were re-envisioned according to contemporary perceptions.


title: Sea shanty

text: These early 20th century collectors' choices of what to include, what to exclude, and how to frame the repertoire all had an effect on how following generations have viewed the genre. Because sailors who had sung shanties were by this time very old or dead, and the general public had little opportunity to experience performances of shanties, the representations by these authors were all the more influential in mediating information and creating the impression of "standard" versions of songs.


title: Sea shanty

text: The English poet John Masefield, following in the footsteps of peers like Rudyard Kipling, seized upon shanties as a nostalgic literary device, and included them along with much older, non-shanty sea songs in his 1906 collection "A Sailor's Garland". Although Masefield had sea experience (1891–95), he was not an expert on shanties and the versions he gave of songs cannot be assumed entirely authentic. For example, he admits to never having heard a pumping shanty, and yet he goes on to present one without citing its source. In one of his earlier articles, his shanties are set to melodies taken verbatim from Davis and Tozer's earlier work, and he mentions having utilized that and the other widely available collection (L.A. Smith, 1888) as resources. Masefield desired to connect shanties with much older English traditions and literature, and his characterization of individual items as such would prove attractive to later enthusiasts. So for example, Masefield implied that the shanty "A-roving" (which he titled "The Maid of Amsterdam") was derived from Thomas Heywood's "The Tragedy of the Rape of Lucrece" (1608). Lyrics and ideas from Masefield's collection became among the most quoted or plagiarized in later shanty collections, and by their sheer ubiquity these contributed to 20th century audiences' perceptions of the genre.