Lyrics ©1975 Ruth Moore
Music © 1986 Gordon Bok
Ruth has written the definitive novels of the Maine coast as it was when I was growing up here. One day she handed me this poem, claiming it wanted a tune. This young fellow, most likely a lobsterman, is listening to the buoy off Cutler Harbor, but now it is above him, and he has just figured out that he's drowning.
Gordon – 12-string guitar
Sleepy sound from the breakers calling me back to shore
Whistle it soft to the silver river
Whistle it loud to the drumming sea
Whistle it low to the moon and morning
Not to me, never to me.
For I'm swinging high in another country, swinging low
Rolling it easy and the dolphins follow me where I go
Whistle it loud to the flood tide making
Whistle it soft to the wheeling sun
Whistle it wild to my girl's heart breaking
She'll remember; she was the one
Spring comes warm over Little River, storm comes black
I was headed home when the Indian Giver took me back'
Whistle it high to the graybeard breakers
Where the secret over the great shoals ran
Whistle the world that was in my pocket
repeat # 1
Little River is recorded on the albums Bay of Fundy, Herrings in the Bay, and is also in the songbook Time and the Flying Snow