In Popular Culture
The title song of the 1971 album Nantucket Sleighride by American rock band Mountain is titled in full "Nantucket Sleighride (To Owen Coffin)". While there is no evidence that the song is specifically about the Essex (and the lyrics are in parts obscure in meaning), it is written from the point of view of a sailor on a ship undertaking a "three-year tour... on a search for the mighty sperm whale", and co-writer Felix Pappalardi confirmed that the Owen Coffin in the dedication was the one from the Essex tragedy, for example in an interview for the British music weekly Sounds (issue dated November 20, 1971).
German funeral doom metal band Ahab released a concept album about the Essex and one song directly references Coffin's fate in its title Gnawing Bones (Coffin's Lot) and its lyrics.
The story of the Essex is known to have greatly interested the writer Herman Melville, who made annotations on a copy of an account of the shipwreck and its aftermath, written by the ship's surviving first mate, Owen Chase. The story of the Essex inspired part of Melville's novel, Moby-Dick.
Read more about this topic: Owen Coffin
Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or culture:
“If they have a popular thought they have to go into a darkened room and lie down until it passes.”
—Kelvin MacKenzie (b. 1946)
“No culture on earth outside of mid-century suburban America has ever deployed one woman per child without simultaneously assigning her such major productive activities as weaving, farming, gathering, temple maintenance, and tent-building. The reason is that full-time, one-on-one child-raising is not good for women or children.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)