Siren song

This article is about the song. You may be looking for the book of the same name.

Tamara singing a siren's song to Scrum.

"We've all heard the stories, the legends. Every sailor lives in fear of being called to their watery grave by the Siren's song. I guess I just thought they'd be a bit more on key."

―Jack Sparrow

A siren song referred to the song, described as both magical and supernatural, sung by the sirens, dangerous creatures in Greek mythology who lured sailors with their music and voices to shipwreck. In addition, being known as sirens of the sea, mermaids were also able to sing a siren's song. It can also refer to an appeal that is hard to resist but that, if heeded, will lead to a bad conclusion.

History

Arabella Smith falls overboard under the influence of the song at Isla Sirena.

"Our song will tear open your heart, and you will beg for more. It will tease you with your greatest desire till you grow mad. And this desire will eventually burn so fierce that you will drive yourself directly to us. Then it is our charge to deliver you to those to whom we answer."

―Morveren, Aquala and Aquila to Jack Sparrow

During the quest for the Sword of Cortés, the crew of the Barnacle fell victim to the siren song, somewhere in the Caribbean Sea. The haunting melody was used by the merfolk of Isla Sirena in an attempt to kill them all. For some reason, Jack Sparrow was the only crewmember not affected by the song. After knocking out and restraining all of his mates to stop them from trying to jump overboard, Jack personally jumped into the water where a whirlpool carried him to Isla Sirena. Confronting the three mermaid leaders, Morveren, Aquala, and Aquila, Jack managed to convince them to release his crew from their spell in exchange for his greatest treasure: freedom.

Following an encounter with the infamous pirate Captain Torrents, Jack Sparrow and the crew of the Fleur de la Mort, composed mostly of his former shipmates, ended up beneath Isla Sirena, where they found Morveren, Aquala and Aquila alone, because the control of the merfolk was taken from them by Torrents with the power of Poseidon's Trident. When Jack and his friend revealed their presence, the mermaids attempted to subdue them with the song, which temporarily caused the crew to start fighting amongst themselves. However, under the influence of the song, Constance Magliore, who was transformed into a cat, saw the mermaids as big, tasty fish, and attacked them, sinking her teeth into their tails. Constance's attack broke the mermaids' concentration, and for a short moment Jack had a clear head. He decided to use the mermaids' own weapon against them, and since the song made everyone want to fulfill their greatest desires, Jack now wanted to defeat the mermaids. Jack's tactic worked perfectly, and the mermaids were forced to stop singing.

When Jack Sparrow sailed his ship, the EITC merchantman Wicked Wench, on a quest to find the mythical island of Kerma, the thoughts of the shining city of Zerzura and its treasure reverberated in his mind like siren song.

Years later, while Pintel and Ragetti argue about trying to solve a riddle found in the navigational charts to rescue Jack Sparrow from the Land of the Dead, Pintel brought up listening to sirens. In the mermaid hunt during the quest for the Fountain of Youth, Gunner threatened Scrum to sing, because mermaids like to hear singing, to sing My Jolly Sailor Bold. While they waited, the pirate Derrick claimed the song of a mermaid would sometimes lead a ship away from the shoals. When she appeared on the surface, the mermaid Tamara used Scrum's song as a siren's song while the other Queen Anne's Revenge crew members began to notice that they're in the company of mermaids in Whitecap Bay.

Behind the scenes

"I ordered the crew to use cold tar, plug their ears. But I - I was curious. I wanted to hear. My crew lashed me to the mast, and I told them, leave me there, no matter what I said. We passed by. Close. And I heard it. Singing. Haunting, beautiful, beyond anything the mind can imagine."

―Jack Sparrow

• Siren songs first appeared in Jack Sparrow: The Siren Song, the 2006 book by Rob Kidd, which featured the mermaids and merfolk, who do the bidding of the Sirens.
• In Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio's screenplay for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Pintel argued with Ragetti about riddles, having said, "no, I wasn't supposed to listen to the sirens." The scene never made it to the final cut of the film but was retained in the film's junior novelization as well as the deleted scene "I Like Riddles" featured in DVD/Blu-ray releases.
• Terry Rossio's 2012 screenplay draft for Dead Men Tell No Tales featured an item called the Siren Shell, or the Shell of the Siren Song. It was said that Jack Sparrow was one of the few sailors to hear the siren song and survive, though he lost his whole crew in the process. During the final battle the main villain the Sea Widow breaks one of the Siren Shells which contains the song, absorbing the melody. It is strongly implied Jack still hears the song by the end of the film. In Rossio's annotations for the screenplay, he noted that because the story is Jack Sparrow's race with the Sea Widow to recover the Siren Song from the Mermaid Trove, many other subtitle variations have been explored. Having experimented with many combinations of these essential words (Mermaid, Trove, Sparrow, Siren Song, Sea Widow, etc.) and the idea that the subtitle should have a sense of mystery and the supernatural, Rossio's favorite of the alternate subtitles was Songs the Sirens Sing. Some considered the title too soft (and perhaps too alliterative) and there had been a preference for Dead Men Tell No Tales, which is a phrase already associated with the franchise and became the film's eventual subtitle.
• In October 2012, mermaids were added to the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. Among the additional rockwork and props added to the Dead Man's Cove scene, guests would see a green, shimmering light, if looking over the side of the boat, accompanying the siren song (My Jolly Sailor Bold) of a mermaid beckoning to lure passengers in just before they drop into the Wicked Wench's pirate battle. In the following month, The Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow opened at Disney's Hollywood Studios, with My Jolly Sailor Bold again being used as the siren's song.
• In Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure at Shanghai Disneyland, several mermaids can be seen, singing a song of love and treasure, as the guests approach the Flying Dutchman.
• In real-world Greek mythology, the sirens were island-dwelling maidens that sung beautiful songs to unsuspecting sailors to lure them closer and crashing on the treacherous rocks around their island homes. The term "siren song" also refers to an appeal that is hard to resist but that, if heeded, will lead to a bad conclusion.

Appearances

• Walt Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean (Post-2012 revamp)
• The Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure
• Jack Sparrow: The Siren Song (First appearance)
• Jack Sparrow: Bold New Horizons
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (junior novelization) (Indirect mention only)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (junior novelization)
• Sea of Thieves: A Pirate's Life (Non-canonical appearance)