Fishing Crisis "IT AIN'T FUNNY" Pamela Morgan

"The future of our seas has never been more precarious. Ninety years of industrial-scale overfishing has brought us to the brink of an ecological catastrophe and deprived millions of their livelihoods."
You can read more about that at http://www.ecoearth.info, or hundreds of other Internet sites that discuss this issue, or ocean pollution. Some of the governing bodies that supposedly are trying to prevent over-fishing, such as ICCAT (the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas) take money for conducting "research" and do little. Ecoearth says the ICCAT really stands for: "the International Conspiracy to Catch All Tunas." They put it bluntly: "the commission is a joke."
But nobody's laughing no more.
And that brings us to "It Ain't Funny" by Pamela Morgan. Though the song is about Newfoundland's slowly faltering fishing industry, the song could easily be about the British fishermen out of work in all the major port cities, or the Irish fishermen. Morgan's a Canadian but her singing style is very U.K.
Pamela spent nearly two decades as the lead singer of Figgy Duff, a Celtic band that happened to be from Newfoundland. They recorded a half-dozen albums, the band coming apart after the death of key member Noel Dinn. Morgan began her solo career two years after Dinn passed on, with the 1995 release "On a Wing and a Prayer." In 2002 she released "Seven Years," and in 2005 the traditional "Ancestral Songs." She created Amber Music, an indie label for her own work, and that of several other talented musicians. You can find mp3 samples of her work, along with Anita Best, Emile Benoit, Vicky Hynes, Peter Navaez, and even some classic Figgy Duff, at: http://www.ambermusic.ca/media.htm
Her song "True or False" has appeared in Celtic music compilations, as has "It Ain't Funny," even though she's not based in Ireland as most on those compilations are.
The lyrics for this version of "It Ain't Funny" go like this:
His lullaby, the waves outside his window
His father and himself made a wonderful pair
Five hundred years of fishing in his family
Still the government wouldn’t listen when he said
“Trouble down there!”

Fat cat smirking in the land of plenty
Making jokes about a people and a culture from a gentler time
Sanctioned and applauded the whole gang rape of the place
But like any rape they blame the victim for the crime

Nautical posturing now is the ultimate insult
It's too little too late- what’s left is up for sale
And the best small boatsmen in the world are on the dole
Stupid and lazy according to the Globe and Mail

It ain’t funny...no more

You can find more details about Pamela at her website http://www.pamelamorgan.ca although it doesn't seem to have been updated since 2007, and the list of tour dates ends with October, 2007. Indie artists do have a lot of trouble keeping websites up, touring, making CD's and earning a living. That's not funny either. The album featuring this song, is now on eMusic.
IT AIN'T FUNNY