NEW  ZEALAND
FO LK * SONG
The Ballad of Captain Cook
Willow Macky 1960


English astronomers had a 2 in 120 year chance of finding the size of the solar system if they could time the transit of Venus across the front of the sun in two widely spaced places.
Tahiti was sunny and friendly, and about as far from England as you could get, so Capt James Cook was sent there to observe the 1769 transit. His young scientists did the job, but they were more interested in the Tahitian Venuses!


Oh young James Cook was a sailor bold,
he was brave, he was good, he was clever.
He rose to be captain in the king's navy
and commanded the good ship Endeavour.

He said to his wife, "You're the joy of my life
though oceans may roll between us,
but I must be off to the isles of the south
to observe the transit of Venus.

Then he sailed away out of Plymouth Bay
with his doughty crew beside him,
with a ready sail for breeze or gale
and the faithful stars to guide him.

They journeyed that way for many a day
this band of gallant freemen,
far to the south in the tempest's mouth
till they passed Cape Maria van Diemen.

Then "Land ahoy!" cried the cabin boy
and eager they were to see land.
Then going ashore raised the flag they bore
on the bush clad hills of New Zealand.

As they made this claim in their sovereign's name
they heard the bellbirds singing,
and the news they did send at the journey's end
set the bells of old England a-ringing.

James Cook was a man who was kind and just
though his enemies learned to fear him.
The Maori chiefs took his word on trust
and his men grew to love and revere him.

My tale now is told of the sailor so bold
who was brave, who was good, who was clever,
who rose to be captain in the king's navy
and commanded the good ship Endeavour.

The Ballad of Captain Cook on record

1959 - William Clauson and the Folk Song Five, Be Japers
45rpm record, His Masters Voice, 7EGM 6010


The Transit of Venus

Tahiti was comfortable and well provisioned for human life; the islanders were friendly and eager to deal with Cook's men. Banks deemed it "the truest picture of an arcadia that the imagination can form." Endeavor's crew was absorbed, amazed.

No wonder Cook and Banks had so little to say about the transit when it finally happened on June 3, 1769. Venus' little black disk, which could only be seen gliding across the blinding sun through special telescopes brought from England, couldn't compete with Tahiti itself.

Banks' log entry on the day of the transit mostly tells of a breakfast-meeting with Tarr�a, the King of the Island, and Tarr�a's sister Nuna, and later in the day, a visit from "three handsome women." Of Venus, he says, "I went to my Companions at the observatory carrying with me Tarr�a, Nuna and some of their chief attendants; to them we shewd the planet upon the sun and made them understand that we came on purpose to see it. After this they went back and myself with them."

Banks was obviously captivated by another aspect of Venus.

Willow Macky Q.S.M.

Katherine Faith (Willow) Macky (b. 1921, d.2006) was one of New Zealand's leading composers of folk-style music and songs about New Zealand's towns, history and heroes.

Willow showed talent at an early age. She chanted her first poem to her parents when she was three, and in 1938 published Ego of Youth, poems she had written between the ages of 3 and 15.

She was educated at St Cuthbert's College, Iona College and the Elam School of Fine Art. She began to play a Gibson guitar her American mother brought from Texas and never looked back.

During World War II she met a young Jewish member of the US Army Medical corps. However marriage plans fell through because of family opposition on religious grounds. But she retained a strong interest in the history of the Jewish people. She wrote a film script, Song of Zion, which took seven years to complete. She self-published it as a book (it is in the NZ National Library), and took it to Hollywood.

Producers there were impressed with the script and Willow was invited to join a team of Hollywood writers. But that unfortunately was not to be, as her recently widowed mother needed her help. (Thomas Hugh Macky, son of Joseph C. Macky, in 1965)

In Sydney during the early 1950s she met Alfred Hill. "The Hills were both very keen on folk music," she related to Gordon Spittle. "They invited us to a meeting of the Bush Music Society to hear the Bushwhackers band play dinky-di Aussie music. We were very intrigued by their homemade instruments."

Singer and songwriter
By the late 1950s she was singing in folk clubs: originals about the Waitemata harbour and the Wellington cablecar mixed with blues and boogie. Her songs were covered by American balladeer William Clauson in 1959 (Hori and His Spanish Guitar, Manawatu, Ballad of Captain Cook, The Bishop and the Tohunga) and opera singer Inia Te Wiata with the BBC Light Orchestra in 1962 (The Maori Flute).

The Tarriers Three recorded We're A Great Big City with Peter Cape's Down the Hall on the flipside. The Four Cities and Two Gold Towns EPs were recorded with the Mariners, and included Cathedral City about Christchurch, I Remember Summer with Ka and Tawhiri Williams, and The Ballad of Captain Cook with the Wellington Junior Choir. Other titles featured The Wood Pigeons and The Bellbirds, Waitangi and Milford Track, and Kupe and Sir Edmund Hillary from The Voyagers EP. In more recent times, Tamaki Moonlight was recorded by girl group When The Cat's Been Spayed.

Her best-known song is the NZ Christmas hymn, Te Harinui (The Great Day), first published in 1957. It is featured in the Girl Guides Songbook and has become recognised as the unofficial New Zealand Christmas Carol. It was recorded on the Bay of Islands extended player in the mid 1960s, alongside other Macky songs, Waitangi and the six-minute Marsden and the First New Zealand Christmas.

Overseas tours
Apart from her NZ-themed works, in the 1960s she wrote some anti-war protest numbers. In the early 1960s she toured in England and the USA. Her photo and an article on folk song in NZ were included in the EFDS 'folk' publication No3 dated Jan 1963. She was among singers performing at the 4th Festival of British Folk Music in 1962.

Graham McGregor has her old Gibson guitar. He says the guitar still has glue marks where Willow stuck a plastic fern leaf to signify her New Zealand connection when she was touring the U.S.A. Then she started playing a classical guitar and The Gibson was left in the wardrobe.

A long interview with her was published in 'Music in New Zealand', No. 26 Spring 1994.

In 2003 she moved to the Caughey-Preston Home in Remuera, and in the 2006 New year's Honours she was awarded the Queen's Service Medal for public service. She died on the 10th of December 2006. She was 86.

Family background
Willow used to sing at Rafters Folk Club which met in the Auckland Unitarian Church in Ponsonby. She was a descendant of one of the families who were founder members of this church over 100 years ago. The Mackys and the Orr family emigrated to NZ from Northern Ireland and both claim descent from the family of William Orr, a famous Irishman who was hanged by the British in 1707 at Carrickfergus Castle for his support for the United Irishmen's cause. They believed that no matter what religion they were, the Irish should govern themselves under one Government - a radical political view!!

The Mackys were prosperous and prominent Auckland citizens a hundred years ago.
Thomas Macky (d.1896 Devenport), set up a trust for the (Unitarian) church. A bronze plaque to Joseph Macky and his wife is on one wall of the (Auck Unit) church. Joseph Macky and his wife were drowned in the Lusitania in 1915 and a manse was given to the church in their memory.

The Ballad Writers' Toolbox

My First Song

Willow Macky told Gordon Spittle
"I started writing because I'd been collecting folk songs from all over the world and thought I'd like to sing something about Auckland. But I couldn't think of anything.
"I thought what do I like best about Auckland? So I wrote a song about the Waitemata Harbour. I only used three chords."


1. "I'd been collecting folk songs..."
...and so she had learnt what were the most popular folk song forms: topics, mood, rhymes, rhythms.
Too many bad songwriters start off without looking at other similar songs. Then they wonder why nobody likes their unstructured, self-centred, dismal creations.

Learn from others.

2. "I thought I'd like to sing something about Auckland..."
...where she had lived and loved and learnt about life.
She wrote about what she had experience of.

Write about what you know best.

3. "I thought what do I like best about Auckland?..."
...not "What has caused me the greatest misery in Auckland?"
She wrote positively, to increase her happiness, and the happiness of others.
She could have written about her lost love, the Jewish soldier, and her oppressive mother.
Some people fill whole CDs with such neurotic junk. But why depress others by wallowing your woes?

Have some self discipline in what you sing publicly.

4. "I only used three chords..."
...because that makes it easy for others to learn and sing the song.
She wrote a simple tune to focus attention on the words.
As an accomplished jazz guitarist, she could have added half a dozen dimished seventh chord runs to show everyone how clever she was, but....

Create folk tunes that ordinary folk can play.

Main Song List
- Home

Published on the NZ Folksong website on 5 June 2004, QSM addition 9 Jan 2006

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