The Inspiration Behind Morse Moose and The Grey Goose

This eccentric song is the closing track on Wings’ 1978 London Town album, but how did it come into being?

The initial sessions for London Town took place on the boat The Fair Carol in Watermelon Bay in the Virgin Islands from May 1977. On the 2001 Wingspan DVD McCartney describes the recording sessions to his daughter, Mary:

The opening tones of the song were inspired by a the sound of the electric piano fed through a signal processor to produce a “morse code”-type sound. As McCartney explains:

This morse-code-based riff probably was almost certainly also inspired by the group’s nautical setting. From 0:55 the theme of a ship’s telecommunication system is reinforced by the overdubbing of crackling voice samples.

It is also here that the main bass guitar ostinato riff makes its first entry.

Rough Mix

In this rough mix of the first part only of the song, it is much easier to discern each instrumental part. Several other instrumental details are worthy of note:

• Joe English’s intense drumming, especially his intricate high-hat work
• Frequent piano glissandi
• Bass guitar fills in the highest register (1:51)
• Jimmy McCulloch’s growling guitar interjections (3:35) using the D minor pentatonic scale

McCartney’s Vocal Timbre

McCartney sings from 1:09. His vocal line is almost monotonal and based repeated notes of A4, near the top of the tenor range. The pitch only descends to D4 on the phrase “I’m calling you”. It is also noteworthy that McCartney employs a coarse vocal timbre in this part of the song.

It is a similar timbre employed in The Beatles song Oh Darling and the Wings song Call Me Back Again. McCartney is more than capable of singing in the high tenor range with a soft, falsetto vocal, such as in the song So Bad on the Pipes of Peace album.

Sea Shanty (from 2:07)

Morse Moose and the Grey Goose is one of numerous songs in McCartney’s catalogue that is from separate units. These units are often composed at different times and McCartney finds a way to stich the parts together to form a coherent whole.Other examples of multi-part songs include Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey and Band on the Run.

The second main section of Morse Moose and the Grey Goose is in the form of a sea shanty. Sea shanties boast a long history were collected and recorded from the nineteenth century by folklorists such as Cecil Sharp. Shanties were often employed to provide a regular pulse for tasks on the deck that needed a level of rhythmic co-ordination. They also helped make repetitive and labour-intense tasks more tolerable for the sailors.

Although there is no shortage of folk music crossing into the world of pop music, sea shanties are more of a rarity. The only mainstream band to have embraced sea shanties is The Pogues, on albums such as Rum, Sodomy & the Lash (1985).

Narrative Style

Sea shanties are sometimes of a ballad or narrative style. That is, they tell a story. Most shanties of that ilk are called foc’sle, forecastle or forebitters. They were song to be sung when work was over. They were named after the sailor’s living quarters, where they would gather around to drink and stories of adventures at the high seas. The Grey Goose fits most comfortably into this ballad or foc’sle style:

The grey goose was a steady boat
People said she’s never float
But one night when the moon was high
The grey goose flew awayAs we were sailing ’round the rocks
The mate took out his compass box
And said the wind is like a fox
But the grey goose flew away

Instrumental Detail

Several other session musicians were called into service in order to enhance the track. The overdubs were done when the band returned to London and the orchestrations were the work of Wil Malone.

• A string section can be heard from 4:12.
• The Sea Shanty section is enhanced by the use of low brass on each half-note/minim beat of the bar
• The use of the accordion/concertina lends an authentic feel from 2:41. The concertina is button-based and diatonic (non-chromatic) version of the accordion. It has a long-standing association with sea shanties and nautical music in general.

Who Wrote the Grey Goose?

Morse Moose and the Grey Goose represents McCartney’s only known espousal of the genre. However, It might be speculated that the sea shanty part of the song is mainly the work of Denny Laine.

In the above interview, McCartney explains that “we” wrote that part of the song after resuming the London Town sessions in London. However, much of the folk influence on the album seems to have stemmed from the input of Laine. The folk-influenced track Deliver Your Children, is credited to McCartney-Laine, but is generally understood to be mainly the work of Laine.

Laine’s later solo career provides more evidence to support the theory that the “Grey Goose” part of the song was probably his contribution. Laine’s penned another sea shanty for his musical Arctic Song – The Ghost of the Scrimshaw Carver. He explains the story behind the song:

Laine’s song is very interesting and shows an intuitive understanding of the sort of modal shifts that often set folks music apart from western diatonic idioms. Each verse is in G-Mixolydian and the harmonic shifts to the chord of F major actually incorporate the note of Bb from the F major scale:

This very curious use of both the major and minor third in the Mixolydian mode is highly unusual and gives Laine’s piece a real “old-world” feel. Folk-song collectors such as Cecil Sharp and Percy Grainger both noted how English traditional singers used neutral or “unstable” thirds, which varied between major and minor. It is possible that Laine is harking back to this tradition.

Conclusion

• Morse Moose and the Grey Goose is a divisive track among fans. Madinger and Easter in Eight Arms to Hold You observed, “Macca aficionados either love or hate this one…no middle ground”.
• Despite the divided opinion, it is interesting to chart how the track came into being from a single repeated “morse code” keyboard riff.
• In the second half of the song McCartney and Laine draw upon the sea shanty tradition. This part of the song is more likely to be the work of Laine.
• The track is enhanced by a number of instrumental details, such as the work the regular band in the first part of the song and the contribution of session players to the Grey Goose section.

Thanks to Charles Gaskell for his input on the concept of neutral thirds.