Dawson's Christian
by Duane Elms, additional lyrics by Jordin Kare

Jayme Dawson was the Captain of the Christian and her crew
And he flew and fought the Christian in the War of '82
Now the Christian was the finest ship 'tween here and Charlemagne
And the crew of Jayme Dawson was the same

On patrol in sector seven, keeping watch on Barber's sun
They were jumped by three light cruisers though they were no match for one
As they came to general quarters and they sent out the alarm
Jayme must have known they'd finally bought the farm

Now they say that Jayme Dawson was no man to cut and run
And they say that when he fought he had the fury of a sun
But they say he made his bargain with some power of the night
That he sold his soul to win his final fight

No one living saw that battle though the fleet was quick to leave
But at the site they found a scene no sane man would believe
Three light cruisers cut to ribbons, wreckage scattered all around
But no trace of Dawson's Christian could be found

There are stories of the Dutchman, the Celeste and Barnham's Pride
There are stories of the Horseman and the Lady at his side
But the tale that makes my blood run cold, the more because it's true
Is the tale of Jayme Dawson and his crew
Yes, the tale of Dawson's Christian and her crew

I was second mate on Hera's Dream, a freighter of the line
Running loads of precious metals to the colony on Nine
I was standing second watch of that most uneventful flight
When the pirate ships appeared out of the night

Well I thought our fate was settled, for they had us four to one
And you can't fight bloody pirates when your freighter has no gun
So we stood by to be boarded by a party yet unseen
When another ship appeared upon our screen

First I thought she was a pirate, but the vector was all wrong
Then I thought the fleet had found us, but the signal wasn't strong
And our hailing brought no answer, and I felt a sudden dread
For the stranger's shields were up and glowing red

Now the courage of that single ship is shown by very few
And I thought none but a madman would fly her as she flew
She was outgunned, she was outnumbered, but a cheer came from our lips
When she swung to fire on the pirate ships

And the stranger's beams burned brighter than all beams I'd seen before
And the stranger's shields were harder than the heart of any whore
And the battle rent the ether, as we watched and shook our heads
Four pirate ships she cut to bloody shreds
Four pirate ships were cut to bloody shreds

Just as quickly as it started then the fighting was all done
For the pirate ships were shattered and the stranger's ship had won
She matched v and lay beside us, and we watched her full of awe
Then she dropped her shields and this is what we saw

There were thirty holes clear through her and a gash along one side
And we knew that when it happened, every soul on board had died
Then she rolled to show her markings, and we read them and we knew
The fate of Jayme Dawson and his crew
She was the Christian... and a grave for all her crew

Then she turned as if to leave us, but instead began to fade
First her hull, and then her bulkheads, as we trembled there afraid
But there are twenty men who'll swear with me, the last to slip from view
Were the bones of Jayme Dawson and his crew
Dead white bones of Jayme Dawson and his crew

There are stories of the Dutchman, the Celeste and Barnham's Pride
There are stories of the Horseman and the Lady at his side
But the tale that makes my blood run cold, 'cause I know that it's true
Is the tale of Jayme Dawson and his crew
Yes, the tale of Dawson's Christian and her crew
They're out there... Jayme Dawson and his crew!

About the Song

Vixy:
I first heard this song on Jordin Kare's album Parody Violation (along with his filk of it, "Dawson's Concom"). It captured my imagination immediately. My mother used to cover Johnny Cash's "Ghost Riders In the Sky" at her various singing gigs, and "Dawson's Christian" always gave me the same chills. I was so excited when we started covering it; I try to sing it the way I would read aloud a scary story. I'm eternally grateful to Duane Elms for allowing us to record this. I hope we've done it justice.

Tony:
This was the most-requested song to be put onto our second album, based on comments we'd gotten in emails. We'd been covering the song in filk circles for a long time, and a lot of people seem to have liked our version. I hope they like this recording!

Our version contains some lyrics that weren't in Duane Elms' original song. Some of the lyrics in our version are from Jordin Kare's version, so technically what we're doing here is a "cover of a cover". Jordin says that makes it a "duvet".

About the Recording

Vixy:
I couldn't help having ghost stories on the brain while we recorded this. Naturally this led to mash-ups. Between takes I blurted "And hanging on the side of the space ship... was a hook." The next take was delayed while order was restored to the room.

After we saw Hamilton I really wanted to find a way to mash up "she was outgunned, she was outnumbered" with "we are outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered, outplanned". I'm sure someone will beat me to it.

Tony:
This song has no bass guitar, mostly because I tried to record one and couldn't get a good style going, and I didn't think it was a good fit for Chris. So I had Betsy play a low cello part to fill in the low frequencies instead, and then record a different cello part for the fills and improvisations. I particularly like the way Betsy and Sunnie sparsely fill in the spaces in this song with interesting stuff, sometimes taking turns, sometimes playing in harmony.

The spooky sound effects are Creepy Cello Shit™ and Creepy Fiddle Shit™. I really had fun playing with these tracks and mixing them in just the right amounts to give texture at certain moments in the song.

The drum is Vixy playing the djembe. The particular style of the djembe part, and the overall rhythmic treatment of the song, was something Vixy and I had a big fight over during the recording of the song. I'd intended to have Brian record the part, but Vixy and I disagreed on what we wanted him to play. So we argued and fought about it for an afternoon. There were tears and everything. In the end, we ended up not having Brian on the song at all, and several months later Vixy recorded a fantastic djembe part that made us both very happy. These are the sort of things that you have to go through to make an album. When someone says blood, sweat, and tears, this is the third thing they're talking about.

During mixing, there turned out to be a massive, distracting difference in overall volume between the verse sections and the chorus sections. There is a deliberate increase in energy on the choruses, but on the final recording, the jump in energy also meant a massive jump in volume, because all the instruments were all playing so much harder on those spots. I discussed it with my mastering engineer and he asked me to try to fix it in the mix, rather than make him fix it in the mastering. It was tricky to get the fix just right: You want to keep the energy without overdoing the volume. Instead of trying to mix down each instrument one at a time (because I had already balanced all the instruments to my liking), I automated the main output bus down a bit on the choruses. This worked to balance things out, but it sounded unnatural because the drum (Vixy's djembe) came down too much on the choruses. So on my second try, I did a separate automation on the drum that was a mirror image of the main output bus automation, and that took care of it. I was relieved when this worked, because this was something that I had agonized over for a long time during final mixing. The same issue (requiring the same fix) happend with our remake of The Girl That's Never Been.

The song contains a couple of "stop and start" moments, where the restart is determined by the whim of the lead singer rather than a specific timing beat or by the backing tracks. Note to self: Never allow this to happen on a studio recording ever again. This causes no end of trouble in the tracking and editing. Getting everyone synchronized and on beat is hard enough, and if you're like me and you depend on a solid tempo map for making all your timing edits, the necessary machinations required to get everything to line up (especially when some of your timing edits are performed in an external tool, requiring an export/import step which doesn't include the tempo map) are a massive headache. And in the end, when you've finally got all the instruments all fixed and lined up with what your lead singer sang on bed track scratch vocal, then it's time for the lead singer to lay down the final vocal, then it's a ton of work to get that timing right. I pledge from now on, all stop/start songs I enginner will stop and start on beats already extant in the single-tempo click track, no exceptions.