The Island Of General Intoxication

I am enjoying Shogun as much as I anticipated I would. The second episode delves into the mission Pilot John Blackthorne’s Dutch ship was on when they wrecked on the coast of Japan. It reflects the intense worldwide trade competition/war that was underway as the 16th Century bled into the 17th, between and among the Dutch, the French, the Portuguese and the Spanish — with the English jumping in rather late, but proving to be masters of the game.

I say privateer, you say pirate…

The maritime frontier was wild, and it created a global economy that made the modern world.

When we think of pirate towns, we think of Port Royal in Jamaica, or Nassau in the Bahamas (pirate Deadwood in my beloved Black Sails).

But, as the estimable YouTube Channel Gold & Gunpowder elucidates, New York was truly the capital of piracy in the western hemisphere.

As the video lines out, New York was a frontier town from the beginning. I love the speculation on the origin of the name Manhattan — and I am absolutely going with “The Island of General Intoxication.” The center of the fur trade shifted fairly early on to Albany, though the furs ran through NYC on their way back to Europe. The City turned its face toward the Atlantic trade — legitimate and otherwise.

There is an element of Continuity & Persistence here. Troubadour Tom Russell has often referred to NYC as “the biggest border town in the world.” Seems like it always has been.

I wrote this song with Bob Neuwirth one day in New York. Bob (who used to hang out with Bob Dylan) is a fine songwriter and we’ve written others, including Beyond the Blues, with Peter Case. This was back in the days when NYC was rougher and Bob was saying the only way to survive New York was to think of it as “the biggest border town in the world…” Then we wrote the song.