Track By Tracks: Calico Jack - Jack Speak Shanties (2025)

'Jack Speak Shanties' is first and foremost a tribute we wanted to pay to the music that has always inspired us. Epic and unforgettable chants have always accompanied sailors’ lives, and only these melodies coming from distant times and places can really make you feel as if the ocean breeze is blowing in your face.

We chose five of the countless beautiful existing shanties and wanted to revisit them to make them our own while maintaining the original spirit of the songs and their melodic skeleton.

Each of the 5 songs on ‘Jack Speak Shanties’ is meant to be a combination of its original version with a particular style of metal, one different from the other. For exampl,e ‘Don't Forget your Old Shipmates’ is wild and aggressive as per our trademark, ‘The 24th of February’ is fast but epic and melancholic, while ‘Spanish Ladies’ slows down the speed and tries to capture the original song’s desperation for a farewell.

Describe each song track by track

Wellerman: Of the songs contained in 'Jack Speak Shanties' 'Wellerman' is probably the best known, the one that many will have heard at least once because many adaptations have been made of it, even successful ones.

It is a whalers' sea ballad originally from New Zealand: the "wellermen" were supply ships owned by the Weller brothers, three merchant traders in the 1800s who were amongst the earliest European settlers of those lands.

The song's lyrics describe a whaling ship called the Billy o' Tea and its hunt for a right whale. The song describes how the ship's crew hopes for a "wellerman" to arrive and bring them supplies of luxuries.

Calico Jack has repurposed the song with a solemn, martial style in the style of Scandinavian folk/viking metal that harks back to polka.

Don’t Forget your Old Shipmate: Presented by Calico Jack with the typical Korpiklaani-esque humppa sound, 'Don't Forget your Old Shipmate' is a traditional naval song that has been sung by British Royal Navy sailors since the 19th century.

Lately, the song has been made famous because it is sung in the movie 'Master and Commander' in the wardroom scene.

In the lyrics of the song, a sailor addresses one of his shipmates by constantly calling him 'Jack': this is because sailors refer to others as 'Jack' as a generic term for a sailor or a common man, much like 'Joe' is used today.

Off to Sea Once More: 'Off to Sea Once More' is a sea shanty and folk song originating from the English Merchant Navy, likely from the period of 1700 - 1900.

It tells the story of a sailor who, after completing his voyage and receiving his pay, gets very drunk and has all his clothing and hard-earned money stolen by a prostitute. Though he has sworn to 'go to sea no more', his situation forces him to accept a position on a whaling ship bound for the Arctic Sea, where he subsequently endures terrible conditions such as the freezing cold.

The song, adapted by Calico Jack with a groovy and punctuated style and to which was added an Irish-oriented fiddle section, urges sailors to avoid strong drink and the hard lifestyle that comes with a seafaring life, and to 'get married instead'.

The 24th of February: The Twenty-Fourth of February" is a shanty that tells the story of the Battle of Cadiz in 1669. This battle involved the Mary Rose, an English ship, and a group of Algerian pirates.

This is the most epic and battle-hardened of the tracks on the EP and probably the one most reminiscent of the classic Calico Jack sound.

Finntroll were the main inspiration and in particular their legendary 'Jaktens Tid': this cover was born precisely with the intention of fusing a seafaring ballad with the structure of that particular song by the Finnish band.

Spanish Ladies: 'Spanish Ladies' was the first shanty cover played by the band: it was performed live at the beginning of their career and has never been recorded in the studio until now, but the 2025 version is completely different from the one from those early years, which therefore remains unreleased!

'Spanish Ladies' is one of the most famous sea shanty of all time and dates back as far as the 17th century.

Calico Jack, in this version, decided to re-propose it with a more cadenced style than usual, inspired by the epic and desperate metal ballads of bands like Primordial.