New Sea Songs

In good old times they sang on the sailboats and it is no wonder that the songs where about homesickness, visits to harbors, women, drinking and work at sea. The seamen often had a singer, a shanty man, to motivate them for action. The shanty man could sing familiar lyrics, but he also had a great freedom to dictate new verses. The workmen often responded by singing the refrain. Songs: 54 Pages: 160 Songwriter: Ivar Oksendal Publisher: Anapta More Description

In good old times they sang on the sailboats and it is no wonder that the songs where about homesickness, visits to harbors, women, drinking and work at sea. The seamen often had a singer, a shanty man, to motivate them for action. The shanty man could sing familiar lyrics, but he also had a great freedom to dictate new verses. The workmen often responded by singing the refrain.

Songs: 54
Pages: 160
Songwriter: Ivar Oksendal
Publisher: Anapta

Young sailors
Fishermen
Whaling
In the navy
On shore
Conditions on board
Homeward bound
Load and unload
Shipwreck
After death
The end of an era

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Alice Cary
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
George du Maurier
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Thomas Hood
William Allingham
... and 11 uknown.

My name is Ivar Øksendal and I live in Kristiansand, Norway, but I was born and raised in Horten, Norway, 1944. Then I worked different places as a teacher and finally I became a consultant in Kristiansand at the education department in Vest-Agder county municipality.

One day I got this amazing gift of dreaming melodies. It just suddenly started in 2003. I can hear the melody and sometimes also see the performance while sleeping. Then I wake up, hum the melody into a voice recorder and fall asleep again. The next day I write the melodies in the computer software for writing music notes, Finale. When the melodies are made in my mind, there is no need to work with them in the traditional way, e.g. to sit with an instrument and create. There have roughly been 10,000 melodies made this way.

The next thing I do is to choose a song from the night's catch and write the lyrics to it. I 'analyze' the melody to find out what kind of genre it sounds like, like love songs, protest, urbanism, children's songs, etc. I also must decide whether the text is to be written in Norwegian, Danish, Swedish or English.

My son, Vidar Øksendal, born 1979, publishes the books through his own publishing company. Vidar holds a bachelor degree in media management from Gjøvik University College (today called NTNU Gjøvik). He is the general manager and I am deputy board member of our small joint stock company, Anapta Forlag AS. Without his enthusiasm and effort, it is possible that none of the books would have been released.