Yes, it’s another song connections post! At this point, this should probably be a formal blog series/feature, except each post is lazier than the last.

I recently encountered the song “Ye Jacobites by Name,” and as I listened to it, it struck me that it sounded like “Captain Kidd.” You can read a bit about this piratical song here and listen to Tempest’s rock version here. (Funnily enough, one of Wikipedia’s “Selected recordings” of “Captain Kidd” is… Owen Hand’s “Ye Jacobites by Name.” The Wikipedia page for “Ye Jacobites by Name” says nothing about “Captain Kidd.”)

Now, I first heard of “Captain Kidd” when someone told me it was the “same” as the shape note tune “Wondrous Love” (known as a hymn to many non-shape note singers). So by transitivity “Ye Jacobites by Name” = “Wondrous Love.”

As it happens, someone else has already done all the genealogical research into the history of these songs. You can read all about “Ye Jacobites by Name,” “Captain Kidd,” “Wondrous Love,” and much more here.

“Captain Kidd” in The Shenandoah Harmony

And speaking of shape note tunes, the newest shape note book, The Shenandoah Harmony, has a song in it called “Captain Kidd.” The text, however, is not “My name is Captain Kidd, as I sailed, as I sailed,” but rather “Thro’ all the world below, God is seen all around.” You can listen to the Shenandoah Harmony tune here.