Labour & Pop Culture: Downeaster Alexa

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “Downeaster Alexa” by Billy Joel. Joel workers on an Oyster Boat at one time and has a history of protesting regulations that constrained fisheries workers.

Downeaster Alexa is sung from the perspective of a worker struggling to maintain ownership of his (?) boat in the face of declining fish stocks:

I've got bills to pay and children who need clothes
I know there's fish out there but where God only knows
They say these waters aren't what they used to be
But I've got people back on land who count on me

Joel also mentioned government regulation (“Since they told me I can’t sell no stripers”) and the gentrification of old fishing towns.

There ain't much future for a man who works the sea
But there ain't no island left for islanders like me

Overall, Downeaster Alexa is a moving tribute to the decline of a traditional industry and the impact that this decline has on those who (often for generations) worked in it. Joel’s voice is also amazingly rich and powerful in song.While searching for some info, I ran across this fascinating set of learning activities (about fisheries) based upon the Downeaster Alexa.



Well I'm on the Downeaster Alexa
And I'm cruising through Block Island Sound
I have charted a course to the Vineyard
But tonight I am Nantucket bound

We took on diesel back in Montauk yesterday
And left this morning from the bell in Gardiner's Bay
Like all the locals here I've had to sell my home
Too proud to leave I've worked my fingers to the bone

So I could own my Downeaster Alexa
And I go where the ocean is deep
There are giants out there in the canyons
And a good captain can't fall asleep

I've got bills to pay and children who need clothes
I know there's fish out there but where God only knows
They say these waters aren't what they used to be
But I've got people back on land who count on me

So if you see my Downeaster Alexa
And if you work with the rod and the reel
Tell my wife I am trawling Atlantis
And I still have my hands on the wheel

Yeah yo [x4]

Now I drive my Downeaster Alexa
More and more miles from shore every year
Since they tell me I can't sell no stripers
And there's no luck in swordfishing here

I was a bayman like my father was before
Can't make a living as a bayman anymore
There ain't much future for a man who works the sea
But there ain't no island left for islanders like me

Yea yea yea oh [x4]

-- Bob Barnetson