The Story Behind 'A Pirate's Eyes™'

 

Saturday, June 6, 2026,

I'm sitting on my patio after taking a break from yard work.

My patio is a covered outdoor kitchen,mini fridge

and a TV with sports on, etc. 

The ball game is on and I take out my phone, checking sport scores and wasting time before getting back to work.

 

Around me are lots of signs I collected over the years.

Tin signs, beer signs, man cave funny bar sayings.

The usual stuff.

 

But today, there was one sign that felt different.

A circular pirate picture.

No words.

No brand.

No slogan.

Just a pirate. 

And today, he looked back at me.

 

Bought it maybe 3 years ago. It adding to the bar atmosphere, it was almost 3D

 

Looked at it hundreds of times and never thought much about it. It was just part of the décor.

 

But today, something strange happened.

I looked up and the pirate looked different.

Not the hat .. Not the swords .. Not the skull.

 

The Eyes 

 

For some reason, they grabbed me.

They weren't angry.

They weren't wild.

They weren't cartoon pirate eyes.

They were Cold .. Dark .. Empty.

 

The eyes of a man who ..

'Gives No Quarter'

'Offers No Lies'

 

Pirates with eyes that give no quarter and offer no lies have a hard, steady, and fearless look.

A gaze that shows life on the sea, facing danger, storms,

and battles without any fear or doubt.

 

I stared at the picture for a few minutes ..

And a phrase popped into my head.

 

A Pirate's Eyes™

 

The title came before a single lyric.

 

I immediately started thinking about a pirate song.

At first I went exactly where everybody goes.

Pirate ships, cannons, rum, treasure, sword fights.

All the usual pirate stuff.

Wrote 5 verses ... then threw them all out.

The problem was that every verse sounded like

every other pirate song I'd ever heard.

 

So start rewriting .. And rewriting .. And rewriting.

Probably thirty times.

 

Started researching actual pirate terminology, old sailing language, naval warfare, sea legends, and pirate history.

 

Every time I thought I had the song finished,

I'd find a better phrase or a stronger image.

Slowly, the song changed.

The swords became less important.

The treasure disappeared.

The pirate clichés started falling away.

The focus kept coming back to those eyes.

 

Then, I found the name Calico Jack. 

The creator of the 'Jolly Roger Flag' 

Why did mean Pirates called it a 'Jolly Roger' ?
So I called it '..'The Calico Flag'

 

What would a sailor see when he looked across a deck and realized the pirate boarding his ship wasn't coming for gold?

 

What would a merchant captain see when he knew

there was no escape?

What would a dying man remember in his final moments?

The answer kept being the same.

A Pirates Eyes™

 

Everything began building around that single image.

I could hear the song in my head.

A slow stomping 4/4 beat.

Heavy and deliberate.

 

I wanted a sound like it was being sung

by a cursed crew at sea 

Male voices singing almost like a chant.

Uilleann pipes carrying a haunting melody underneath.

Not a cheerful sea shanty

Something older .. Darker.

 

Something that sounded like it had been sung in taverns

and harbours for a hundred years.

 

By the time I finished, almost everything

I started with was gone.

 

What remained was a song about fear.

About mortality.

About the reputation a pirate carried long before

he ever fired a cannon.

 

And all of it came from a simple moment

on a summer afternoon.

A break from yard work.

A glance away from my phone.

 

A picture I'd seen every day for years.

And for the first time, it looked back.

 

With ... A Pirate's Eyes™ ­

 

NKM