Songs of a Sourdough
Robert W. Service earned his nickname, the Bard of the Yukon, with this 1907 collection of ballads about the Klondike gold rush and the men it drew north. Two of his best known poems live here, “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” and “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” both told in a rollicking, campfire cadence that carries menace and dark comedy in equal measure. Around them are verses on the loneliness of the trail, the pull of gold fever, and the harsh grandeur of a frozen land that rewards the tough and breaks the rest. Service writes for the ear, and his rhythm still lands. The full collection is available here as a free PDF and EPUB edition.
About the Author
Robert W. Service (1874-1958) was a British-Canadian poet dubbed the Bard of the Yukon. Born in England and raised in Scotland, he emigrated to Canada and worked as a bank clerk in the far north, where the Klondike gold rush inspired the ballads that made…
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Listen to Songs of a Sourdough Audiobook Free
Listen to Songs of a Sourdough by Robert W. Service free online. The full audiobook (1 hr 28 min, 8 chapters, read by Phil Benson) streams free on this page.
Songs of a Sourdough (1907) is a public domain work.
| # | Chapter | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Law of the Yukon; The Parson's Son; The Spell of the Yukon | 14:22 | |
| 2 | The Call of the Wild; The Lone Trail; The Heart of the Sourdough; The Three Voices | 9:30 | |
| 3 | The Pines; The Harpy; The Lure of Little Voices; The Song of the Wage Slave; Grin | 12:28 | |
| 4 | The Shooting of Dan McGrew | 5:24 | |
| 5 | The Cremation of Sam McGhee | 5:27 | |
| 6 | My Madonna; Unforgotten; The Reckoning; Quatrains; The Men that Don't Fit in; Music in the Bush; The Rhyme of the Remittance Man | 12:58 | |
| 7 | The Low Down White; The Little Old Log Cabin; The Younger Son; The March of the Dead; "Fighting Mac"; The Woman and the Angel | 17:06 | |
| 8 | The Rhyme of the Restless Ones; New Years Eve; Comfort; Premonition; The Tramps; L'envoi | 10:42 |
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