#Remittance Man (or woman) was a term that applied to those who were “sent to the colonies”, a failure to their families in the home countries, an embarrassment, hence sent to the #colonies and sent a periodic remittance. Presumably just enough to survive and prevent them from returning home to cause further embarrassment. They were often portrayed as sad and pathetic symbols in song and verse.
Jimmy Buffett (1995) sings a song called Remittance Man, the video and lyrics are below. He portrays the traditional view of the Remittance man, a lazy vagabond who dreams his life away.
Sinner on the mainland
He’s a sinner on the sea
He looks for absolution
Not accountability
How many destinations
Oh God he’s seen them all
He collects his precious pittance
In every port of call
Remittance Man
Black sheep of the family clan
Broke too many rules along the way
Remittance Man
So far away from home
No they’ll never understand the Remittance Man
A man of empty pockets
From jingling his change
The idleness and grieving
Are all that he retains
By the harbor lights of Sydney
Or the Bora Bora moon
He recites his sad confession
To the seagulls and the loons
Remittance Man
Black sheep of the family clan
Broke too many rules along the way
Remittance Man
So far away from home
No they’ll never understand the Remittance Man
Well you could claim that you were born a prince
But you’re the only one you can convince
Survivor with no livelihood, that you could ever make it good
But still you dream of what you can pretend
An unexpected passenger
Boarded in Marseilles
An angel full of tenderness
She gave her heart away
She was but a gypsy
He was just a stray
They almost made a miracle
But it slowly slipped away
So he follows the equator
With a wish to run aground
It’s a very vicious circle
Going round and round and round
And he watches from the fantail
As the mainland disappears
Just like the Flying Dutchman
He’s a prisoner of his fears
Remittance Man
Black sheep of the family clan
Broke too many rules along the way
Remittance Man
So far away from home
No they’ll never understand
No they’ll never understand
No they’ll never understand
The Remittance Man
Robert Service, the famous Canadian poet also wrote “The Rhyme of the Remittance Man” (1907). In this case the “Remittance Man” does not rue leaving “flaming London or fevered Paris” but is content in the Canadian wilderness and “is signed and sealed to nature”.
The Rhyme Of The Remittance Man
There’s a four-pronged buck a-swinging in the shadow of my cabin,
And it roamed the velvet valley till to-day;
But I tracked it by the river, and I trailed it in the cover,
And I killed it on the mountain miles away.
Now I’ve had my lazy supper, and the level sun is gleaming
On the water where the silver salmon play;
And I light my little corn-cob, and I linger, softly dreaming,
In the twilight, of a land that’s far away.
Far away, so faint and far, is flaming London, fevered Paris,
That I fancy I have gained another star;
Far away the din and hurry, far away the sin and worry,
Far away — God knows they cannot be too far.
Gilded galley-slaves of Mammon — how my purse-proud brothers taunt me!
I might have been as well-to-do as they
Had I clutched like them my chances, learned their wisdom, crushed my fancies,
Starved my soul and gone to business every day.
Well, the cherry bends with blossom and the vivid grass is springing,
And the star-like lily nestles in the green;
And the frogs their joys are singing, and my heart in tune is ringing,
And it doesn’t matter what I might have been.
While above the scented pine-gloom, piling heights of golden glory,
The sun-god paints his canvas in the west,
I can couch me deep in clover, I can listen to the story
Of the lazy, lapping water — it is best.
While the trout leaps in the river, and the blue grouse thrills the cover,
And the frozen snow betrays the panther’s track,
And the robin greets the dayspring with the rapture of a lover,
I am happy, and I’ll nevermore go back.
For I know I’d just be longing for the little old log cabin,
With the morning-glory clinging to the door,
Till I loathed the city places, cursed the care on all the faces,
Turned my back on lazar London evermore.
So send me far from Lombard Street, and write me down a failure;
Put a little in my purse and leave me free.
Say: “He turned from Fortune’s offering to follow up a pale lure,
He is one of us no longer — let him be.”
I am one of you no longer; by the trails my feet have broken,
The dizzy peaks I’ve scaled, the camp-fire’s glow;
By the lonely seas I’ve sailed in — yea, the final word is spoken,
I am signed and sealed to nature. Be it so.
Photo from the Vernon, BC Museum