quigonejinn | stop ourselves believing.

The Dreams that Save, William Bush FST (12 tracks, 82.3 MB)

Every lieutenant could at least dream, even lieutenants like Bush with no imagination at all. -- Lieutenant Hornblower

02. The Arcade Fire - Rebellion (Lies)

A dead man lay there, half way up, but Bush gave the corpse no more attention than it deserved. At the top was the main battery, six huge guns pointing through the embrasures. And beyond was the sky, all bloody-red with the dawn. -- Lieutenant Hornblower

03. Jay-Z - The Watcher (feat. Dr. Dre and Rakim)

Everything was changed and unreal. The shouts of the Spaniards might have been the shrill cries of little children at play. Bush saw the muskets levelled and fired, but the irregular volley sounded in his ears no louder than popguns. The charge was sweeping the deck; Bush tried to spring forward to join with it but his legs strangely would not move. He found himself lying on the deck and his arms had no strength when he tried to lift himself up. -- Lieutenant Hornblower

04. Beck - Little One

Bush and Prowse, and the surgeon, Wallis, and the purser, Huffnell, had made the presentation after a mysterious request from Bush that they should be allowed to enter his cabin for a moment in his absence. Hornblower had returned to the cabin to find the deputation there and the cabin transformed. There were curtains and cushions -- stuffed with oakum —- and a coverlet, all gay with red and blue roses and green leaves painted on with ship's paint by some unknown artist in the ship's company. -- Hornblower and the Hotspur

05. Hem - When I Was Drinking

Wrecks; stranded whales; flotsam and jetsam; Droits of Admiralty dealt with things of this sort, appropriating them for the Crown, and, despite the name, they were of no concern to Their Lordships. Bush's grin expanded into a laugh. -- Hornblower and the Hotspur

06. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps

The new captain pulled a paper from his breast pocket, opened it, and began to read. A shout from Bush bared every head so that the function would take place with due solemnity.

"Orders given by us, William Cornwallis, Vice-Admiral of the Red, Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Commanding His Majesty's Ships and Vessels of the Channel Fleet, to James Percival Meadows, Esquire --" -- Hornblower and the Crisis

07. Ada - Maps

The crew cheered again, the poor fools, when they saw that they were about to face the rest of the French, even though it meant the certain death of half of them at least. Hornblower felt pity -- or was it contempt? -- for them and their fighting madness or thirst for glory. Bush was as bad as any of them, judging by the way his face had lit up at the order. He wanted the Frenchman's blood just because they were Frenchmen, and thought nothing of the chance of being a legless cripple if he were granted the chance of smashing a few French legs first. -- Ship of the Line

08. The Kinks - Living on a Thin Line

It was a matter of some days before he mastered his giddiness and weakness, and then as soon as he was able to use the wooden leg effectively they found all manner of things wrong with it. It was none too easy to find the most suitable length, and they discovered to their surprise that it was a matter of some importance to set the leather tip at exactly the right angle to the shaft. -- Flying Colours

09. Jim White - Bluebird

"They won't give me a ship —- not with this leg of mine —- but there's the dockyard job at Sheerness waiting for me. I should never be captain if it weren't for you, sir." -- Flying Colours

10. Sufjan Stevens - For the Widows in Paradise

Bush glanced over the port-side rail, and Hornblower looked across with him. There was the rest of the squadron, the two ugly bomb-ketches, the two big ship-rigged sloops, and the graceful little cutter. There were puffs of smoke showing at the sides of each of them, blown to nothingness almost instantly by the wind, and then the boom of the shots as each ship saluted the pendant, firing gun for gun, taking the time from the Commodore. -- Commodore Hornblower

11. Craig Armstrong - Starless II

"All ready, sir?" piped up a voice from the sternsheets.

"Goodbye, Bush," said Hornblower.

"Goodbye, sir." -- Lord Hornblower

12. Embarrassing dorko bonus track of WB "duty above all else" Navy Love smushiness. Really, when I'm channeling the big smushy craggy-feature, "I'll offer you every penny I have in the world and then make you cushions besides" (as

black_hound puts it) love, I jump around my room and play air guitar to this. Because come on. You know that if he'd lived in the 1980s or later, Bush would have SO TOTALLY enjoyed this kinda music despite the Dago guitars, and you know. He would have listened to this song while driving to Sheerness in his blue pickup with dust on the windshield, the windows down and the AC off.

Cover image is a 1796 print of the abandonment of the HMS Centaur, which was "captured after a very gallant resistance" during the 1759 Battle of Lagos Bay under Boscawen. Lagos, from what I understand, is the battle where the British Navy picked up its first Saucy Temeraire. :>

Back image is Blacksmith and His Sons by John A. Noble.

Both are overlaid up with bits of Turner paintings -- the front is "The Fighting "Temeraire' tugged to her last berth to be broken up," and if you squint, you can see the funnels of the steamship down in the lefthand corner. The back has "Shade and Darkness - the Evening of the Deluge."

And, PS: I'll cry if you don't listen give the Jay-Z track a chance and think about it as sort of a statement of All Things Bush. If you can take the racist epithets in the HH books, you can take a couple casual mentions of the N-word, and you can also see how the song is utterly Bush. Those pale, watchful eyes? The verbal braggadocio and posturing? Come on. The pride that he takes in his work, his experience? He was pricking his finger before you even knew what the ~~family~~ Navy was.

Bush is also capable of blowing a hundred pounds in two days. XD Respect him and his bitch.