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Thanks
to my two sons Philip and Martin for having kept
the tradition alive

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Omschrijving:

Voorwoord

Aantal pagina's:

430

Taal:

Engels

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

laatste wijziging 07-02-2023

1 gedigitaliseerd

049 Shanties From The Seven Seas

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YANKEE JOHN, STORMALONG
shanties. Also they were used at the old-fashioned brake or lever windlasses. Later, as iron ships superseded wooden ones, dispensing with the use of pumps to a very great extent, and upright capstans took the place of the older horizontal barrelled windlasses, these three venerable songs were adapted for capstan work, and so they remained to the end of sail. Santiana was very popular with whalers, and the fine tune (b) was
sung to me by an old Norwegian whaler Captain Larsen of Magal- lanes (Punta Arenas). The three tunes I give are all much the same, yet each has its own character. Although I give two versions of the words, in actual fact both were used, or some of both, in any singing of this shanty. These patterns were:
(i) The unhistorical story of Santiana, (2) The Spanish Senoritas (no mention of Santiana),
and sometimes, as in Stormalong, (3) The Benevolent Sailor.
Terry gives a fourth, the verses of Boney. This is another shanty whose origin is veiled in mystery. Probably
it has a Negro source, but Bone wonders whether it may have come from a seaman's prayer to Sainte Anne, the patron saint of Breton seamen. In actual fact General Taylor beat the Mexican general Santa Afla at the battle of Molina del Rey (Buena Vista), but only one shantyman seems to have the correct story:
Santiana ran away . . ., General Taylor gained the day . . .,
and the Americans make Huerta fly. Quite a number of British seamen deserted their ships to join
Santa Ana's wild and ragged army—Britishers, it would appear, favoured the cause of the Mexicans. Many shanties seem to have been taken by cowboys and made use of as camp-fire songs if we are to believe the many instances given in American cowboy song collec- tions. I doubt if sailors ever got them from the cowboys! And this one—Santiana—appears to have been a great favourite with the men of the Wild West! Here is the manner in which they sang it:
o r Santiana, ol' Santiana! o r Santiana! ol' Santiana! Ol' Santiana . . . Santiana gained the day, Hooray Santiana! Santiana gained the day, Upon the plains of Mexico, Mexico, Mexico. 75

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

laatste wijziging 07-02-2023

1 gedigitaliseerd

049 Shanties From The Seven Seas

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YANKEE JOHN, STORMALONG
Zora Neale Hurston, in her book Caribbean Melodies, gives a humorous dance song from New Providence (West Indies), which may be an ancestor of the shanty:
Carry him along! Carry him if he's dead or live, Carry him along!
And for our last of the Stormalong family we have:
YANKEE JOHN, STORMALONG Alternative title, Liza Lee
oy^M Li.30. ut , WjX.'jo»)^, sicEp-»-tor's.' Li- 3a u»su.'i>)4»
^ 1 jflc ipe ,
Ij^-Kte Jojjrj , ^toi-or-oc- oiirj-a - lopd/
2. Liza Lee she promised me, Ch. Tan^ee John, 5tórwalong!
She promised to get spliced to me, Ch. 2^(2nA:ee John, Stormalong!
3. So I shipped away across the sea, In a hard-case Down-Easter to Mirramashee.
4. I promised her a golden ring, I promised her that little thing.
5. I promised I would make her mine. Oh, wouldn't we have a Jamboree fine?
G. Liza Lee she's jilted [slighted] me, Now she will not marry me.
7. Oh, up aloft that yard must go. Up aloft from down below.
8. Oh, stretch her, boys, and show her clew, We're the boys to kick her through!
Other couplets from the 'general utility' shanty Handy, Me Boys
would often be used to lengthen the haul. Santiana in many ways resembles Stormalong; very often shantymen
would bury each hero in a similar burying place, i.e off Cape Stiff. Also Santiana and Mister Stormalong., together with the shanty Lowlands Away, started life in the same job—that of being pump 74

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

laatste wijziging 07-02-2023

1 gedigitaliseerd

049 Shanties From The Seven Seas

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WALK MK ALONG, JOHNNY
3. Oh, ye who dig Ol' Stormy's grave. Dig it deep an' make it safe.
4. Oh, lower him down with a golden chain, Make sure that he don' rise again.
5. Oh, General Taylor died long ago. He's gone, me boys, where the winds don't blow.
6. He died on the field of ol' Monterey, An' Santiana he gained the day.
7. Dan O'Connell he died long ago, Dan he was an Irish boy-O.
8. We'll haul, me boys, an' wake the dead, Let's stow him in his little bed.
Many of the ordinary and the 'livening-up' verses of Mister Storm-
along were used to this tune. Terry and Sharp, both of whom had it from the same shantyman,
Short of Watchet, Somerset, call it 'halyards', but although I also give it as a halyard song, I am inclined to believe that it must have been used as a capstan song or pump shanty at some time or other, since the last two solos and refrains suggest that they were once sung as a full chorus. Nordhoff's version was sung in this fashion—at the jackscrews—and Sharp too gives these last four lines as 'chorus'. Of course other halyard shanties do exist with four solos and four refrains—Ckeer'ly Man, for example—but there were not many, and in all the last solo is sung the same throughout all the verses, e.g. John Kanaka, Mobile Bay, John Cherokee, Bunch 0' Roses. Sharp gives 'Go, 00, 00 .. . 00 you Stormy' instead of'Away' etc., and his first two bars {General Taylor) are a little different from mine.
&en-tr-al Tay-lor
Oain«(i
ti^ft aay .. .
Several Negro songs exist that point to its origin. N. I. White {American Negro Folk Song) discovered in a book called Journal of Residence Among Negroes of the West Indies^ a song about the disposing of dead slaves by the slave-owner which runs: •
Take him to the Gully! Take him to the Gully! But bringee back the frock and board. 'Oh, Massa, Massa, me no deadee yet!' Take him to the Gully! Take him to the Gully! Carry him along!
' M. G. Lewis, London, 184''). 73

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

laatste wijziging 07-02-2023

1 gedigitaliseerd

049 Shanties From The Seven Seas

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WALK ME ALONG, JOHNNY
At this point normally the stanzas about 'Old Stormy's son' would be sung.
I wisht I wuz o r Stormy's son, I'd build a ship o' a thousand ton, etc.
All the foregoing shanties—the three I had from Harding—savour
of Gulf port or West Indian origin. Our next comes from the same part of the world and in all probability has stemmed from a slave song. Nordoff gives this shanty:
Lower him down with a golden chain, Ck. Carry him along, boys, carry him along,
Then he'll never rise again, Ch. Carry him to the burying ground. Grand chorus. 'Way-oh-way-oh-way—storm along, 'Way—you rolling crew, storm along stormy.
as a cotton stowers' chant, but to fit the words the tune must have been slightly different from the one I give.
WALK ME ALONG, ^m Car- 'y 'T' ^ JOHNNY Alternative titles, Walk Him Along, John, General Taylor |»JJ3pl^jlJÏÏJ|j^ dni at)'^tjt, Cv'y »)* ^- ih*- in! y 5'*»|;>"!]w)»-w«v-tyaj.«v tWo StoM(<ij)'B<
'^nJTunm.i^^^ m p
YhiK5« «-Oo^^Jb^ ny.sajry lyt a-lopg.l VyVvS^^ QV-oy,v«>u. Story an' Blow, ^hf- iitf-y- '9' around.
2. We dug his grave with a silver spade, Ch. Walk me along, Johnny, carry me along [Walk him, etc., carry him, etc.].
His shroud o' finest silk wuz made, Ch. Carry me to the burying ground [carry him, etc.].
Then away-ay-ay-ay-ay O Storm an' Blow [you Stormy]. Ch. Walk me along Johnny, carry me along, Way-ay-ay-ay-ay you Storm an' Blow [Stormy], Ch. Carry me to the burying ground.
72

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

laatste wijziging 07-02-2023

1 gedigitaliseerd

049 Shanties From The Seven Seas

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'WAY STORMALONG,JOHN
7. Wake up, yer bitch, 'n' let us in, Get up, yer bitch, 'n' serve us gin.
8. Oh, I wisht I wuz in Liverpool Town, Them Liverpool judics I'd dance around.
9. O long Stormy-stormalong, O long Stormy-stormalong.
The words of the above shanty are much the same as those in
Across the Western Ocean. Both Stormy Along, John and Stortnalong, Lads, Stormy I had from a fine old coloured seaman who hailed from Barbadoes. He was called Harding, the Barbadian Barbarian, and having sailed in British, American, and Bluenose (Nova Scotian) ships, as well as West Indian traders, he wjis a mine of information regarding the shanties, and at times had enacted the role of shanty- man himself. He was a master of the 'hitch'—the singing of wild yelps at certain points in a hauling song. In both the foregoing shanties and in the one which follows—which I also obtained from him—he would give vent to many wild 'hitches', absolutely im- possible for a white man to copy, although white sailors did execute a poor shadow of these Negro yelps.
'WAY STORMALONG, JOHN Alternative title, Mister Stormalong John
2. A good ol' skipper [bosun] to his crew, Ch. 'Way Stormalong John!
An able seaman bold an' true, Ch. 'Way-ay, Mister Stormalong John.
3. We dug his grave with a silver spade. His shroud o' finest silk wuz made.
4. Old Stormy heard the Angel call. So sing his dirge now one an' all.
5. He slipped his cable ofT Cape Horn, Close by the place where he wuz born.
71

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

laatste wijziging 07-02-2023

1 gedigitaliseerd

049 Shanties From The Seven Seas

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STORMALONG, LADS, STORMY
2. Oh, poor o r Stormy's gone to rest, Ch. Stormyalong boys, stormalong, John!
Of all ol' seamen [bosuns] he wuz best, Ch. Ah, ha, come-along, git-along, stormy along, John!
3. He slipped his cable off Cape Horn. Close by the place where he wuz born.
4. We dug his grave with a silver spade. His shroud o' hncst silk wuz made.
and all the verses of Mister Stormalong, including the 'livening-up' ones.
I wisht I wuz o r Stormy's son, I'd build a ship o' a thousand ton.
Sometimes the first refrain would be: To me way-ay Stormalong John!
STORMALONG, LADS, STORMY
Alternative titles. Oh, Stormalong, Old Stormalong, or Wo Stormalong (Sharp)
n . Vitii T. yft '«iH?» • I J J dtxrp a lopg on'a-toui)clw«' I'Ugo, or store) a- \oT)^l oh. Stonp n. lopj op' a . 1 TOU9JL v.i'11 ff,, Stottp 0 lopg l«i>, Storij) y ƒ
2. If ever you go to Liverjx)ol, Ch. OI' Stormalong!
If ever you go to Liverpool, Ch. Stormalong, lads, stormy.
3. To Liverpool that packet school, {Repeat.)
4. Yankee sailors ye'll see there, {Repeat.)
5. With red-topped boots an' short cut hair, {Repeat.)
6. There's Liverpool Pat with his tarpaulin hat, An' 'Frisco Jim, the packet rat.
70

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

laatste wijziging 07-02-2023

1 gedigitaliseerd

049 Shanties From The Seven Seas

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THE ART OF THE SHANTYMAN
shantying one cannot be too dogmatic. It was a common practice too for the tune of one forebitter to be put to the words of another. As to the fitting of words of one shanty to another this was a very common practice—all adding to the difficulty of the collector! It should be noted that the words of most of the hauHng songs (and some capstan) can be fitted to one another with comparative ease— Blackball Line, Roll the Cotton, Santiana, Clear the Track, Bunch o' Roses, South Australia, Blow the Man Down, A Long Time Ago, Whisky Johnny, Mobile Bay, Stormalong, Rio, Hogeye Man, Boney—and the fitting of words from one shanty to another was often the means by which the shantyman lengthened his shanty to complete a long haul or heave. Gordon, in Adventure, points out that work-songs rarely tell a long or consecutive story, since men at work find it difficult to create, recollect, or listen to complicated themes without being distracted from their job of work, and also because such songs are either shortened or lengthened on the spot, according to the time needed in which to execute the work. And he writes that this last process is noticeable in shanties. I agree, but nevertheless most white men's shanties did have a narrative, although I doubt if they could be called 'complicated'. Negro shanties, on the other hand, after the first verse or so nearly always called for improvisation. J. Glyn Davies, writing about the 'stringing out' some shantymen indulged in (i.e. the repeating of a solo line), suggests that repeated lines were a certain sign of a defective text. With this I agree. Other sources from which the shanty came are many. Shore-songs
were often taken over holus-bolus; new shanties would be made up from scraps of tunes heard in Oriental and Latin ports; hymn tunes may have sired some, war-songs others. The following list may give some idea of the many sources from which shanties have, presumably, 'growed':
1. Developed from the hauling cries of Elizabethan seamen. 2. British folk-song and ballad origins (north country, west country, and over the border).
3. Based on fiddler tunes, dance tunes, march tunes, opera and classical music, and war-songs.
4.. True Liverpool and New York Irish origins. 5. Afro-American origins.
(A) Railroad work-songs. Plantation songs from the Missis- sippi and Deep South. Negro work-songs, in general, from the Gulf Ports. Cotton-hoosiers' chants (Negro and white). Minstrel songs.
(B) West Indian origins, from Barbadoes, Jamaica, etc. (c) Latin-American origins, from Trinidad, Guiana, etc. (some with Asiatic connections).
6. Various northern European folk-song origins, as well as 19

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

laatste wijziging 07-02-2023

1 gedigitaliseerd

049 Shanties From The Seven Seas

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THE ART OF THE SHANTYMAN
carried in the Royal Navy to play for the vigorous dancing of the hornpipe insisted upon daily by the commanders to keep the men's blood circulating so as to prevent that dreaded disease of the days of sail—scurvy. They were a sort of anti-scorbutic like the limejuice of the later sailing ships. But as well as fulfilling this function they also played at the capstan as the men hove the huge wooden-stock anchors to the hawse-pipes. They were first employed as far as we know about the first half of the nineteenth century and even in the East India Company and in the Blackwall frigates which took their place a fiddler was an important cog in the ship's machinery. My father told me that even in his time, when larger vessels of the
Navy carried a marine band, smaller ships still clung to their fiddler. And although the fiddler was ousted from the Navy scene and from the Indiamen, scraps of the tunes they played—jigs and reels, marches and waltzes—were adapted by shantymen for work-songs at capstan, brace, and halyard. Again, the Irishman—real, Liverpool, and New York—was in no
minor degree responsible for a good many shanties and forebitters— the songs seamen sang off watch in the fo'c'sle or on the fo'c'sle-head. As the reader will observe as he wades through this volume, many shanties had Irish tunes—dance, folk, and march—and not only were the words and phrases of many of the shanties of Irish origin but in some cases it was customary for the shantyman to sing the shanties with an imitative Irish brogue. The Packet Rats of the Western Ocean Packets were almost one hundred per cent Irish, either from County this or that, or from Liverpool's Scotland Road or New York's Bowery and West Side, and as these seamen were responsible for many of our finest shanties it was only natural for them to choose tunes and words from Irish sources when they made up these songs. Nearly all the forebitters are of Irish origin and many of these were used as capstan and pump songs on account of their stirring choruses. Doerflinger seems to think that the forebitters were sires to the shanties, but, although this was true in several cases, very often the line of descent was the other way around. Not only is it difficult to state which copied which, but very often neither collectors nor sailors can agree as to which was a shanty and which was a fore- bitter. For instance Bone gives Liverpool Girls as a shanty, but Paddy, Lay Back [Mainsail Haul) as an example of a forebitter. On the other hand Doerflinger gives Mainsail Haul (one version) as a shanty and the Liverpool Girls {Roll, Julia, Roll) as a forebitter. Sampson gives High Barbaree as a shanty, other collectors give it as a forebitter. Captain F. Shaw gives Spanish Ladies as a shanty, others present it as a forebitter. Most collectors give Rolling Home as a forebitter, but C. F. Smith definitely states it to be a capstan shanty. And there are many more examples to be found in the following pages. It all boils down to the fact that in talking about shanties and i8

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

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049 Shanties From The Seven Seas

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THE ART OF THE SHANTYMAN
Doerflinger seems to think that Fire, maringo is of Negro origin, but I feel that Ireland is as Uke as not its birthplace. The word 'maringo' is the clue. This quaint word is found in many Irish folk-songs, such as the following:
As I was going along the road, As I was going a-walking, I heard a lassie in the shade; To a young man she was talking. Ch. With a maringo do-a-day, With a maringo do-a-daddy-o!
The tune oi Fire, maringo has also been lost. The fourth chant he gives is Highland Laddie, which has remained
until fairly recent times as a very popular walkaway and capstan song. NordhofF continues: These samples . . . might be continued to an almost indefinite extent...
And how every shanty collector wishes he had continued with samples of others now lost for ever! Of the men who sang these songs he writes: The men who yearly resort to Mobile Bay to screw cotton are, as may
be imagined, a rough set. They are mostly English and Irish sailors, who, leaving their vessels here, remain until they have saved a hundred or more dollars, then ship for Liverpool, London, or wherever port may be their favourite. Screwing cotton is, I think . . . the most exhausting labour that is done on shipboard.
I t is fairly obvious that the wharves of Mobile and such places
were the meeting-ground of white men's songs and shanties and Negro songs and work-songs. Scottish, Irish, and English folk-songs would be brought into the mart by visiting sailors and left the mart after being hammered into shanties by the Negroes, and Negro work-songs from ashore would be taken by white sailors and added to their repertoire for halyard and capstan. And of course regular white men's shanties would be handed over to the Negro and regular Negro shanties would be taken away across the seven seas by the white men. The Gulf Ports could have been called the shanty mart or work-song exchange! Apart from genuine Negro (Southern States and West Indian),
white 'hoosier', and pseudo-Negro (minstrel) sources, shanties had many other origins. C. F. Smith^ has proposed a theory which I feel has much to justify it—the idea that many shanty tunes are no more than 'loose ends' left over from airs played by the ship's fiddler. At sea the fiddle has constantly been a favourite 'dog-watch' instru- ment, and in ships of the King's Navee a fiddler was part of the ship's company. Captain Frank Shaw writes that fiddlers were * A Book of Shanties by C. Fox Smith, Methuen & Co., Ltd., London, 1927. 17

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

laatste wijziging 07-02-2023

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049 Shanties From The Seven Seas

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THE ART OF THE SHANTYMAN
Gulf Ports to work at stowing cotton until the summer. He also quotes Charles Nordhoff—the author oi Nine Years a Sailor,^ who gives a good example of the type of life these white 'hoosiers' led in the late 1840s. I was lucky enough to come across a later edition of the same book—The Merchant Vessel, A Sailor Boy's Voyages.^ Nordhoff refers to singing when heaving on jackscrews and he calls the singing 'chant- ing' and the foreman of the gang of singers the 'Chantyman'. On page 36 ('Songs of the Gangs') he writes:
The chants as may be supposed have more rhyme than reason in them.
The tunes are generally plaintive and monotonous as are most of the capstan tunes of sailors, but resounding over the stili waters of the Bay, they had a fine effect.
He gives the words of 'four typical capstan or cotton songs or chants'. Of the first, Stormalong, he writes:
There was one in which figured that mythical figure 'Old Stormy', the
rising and falling cadences of which, as they swept over the Bay on the breeze, I was never tired of listening to.
Of the second one, which he writes is in praise of the Dollar, he gives two stanzas:
Oh, we work for a Yankee Dollar, Ch. Hurrah, see-man-do,
Yankee Dollar, bully dollar, Ch. Hurrah, see-man-dollar.
Silver dollar, pretty dollar, Ch. Hurrah, see-man-do,
I want your silver dollars, Ch. Oh, Captain, pay me dollar.
The tune of this shanty is unfortunately lost; it seems to be of Negro origin. His third one, for encouraging the gang, is Fire, maringo,fire away:
Lift him up and carry him along. Fire, maringo, fire away.
Put him down where he belongs. Fire, maringo, fire away.
Ease him down and let him lay, Fire, maringo, fire away.
Screw him in, and there he'll stay, Fire, maringo, fire away.
Stow him in his hole below. Fire, maringo, fire away.
Say he must, and then he'll go. Fire, maringo, fire away.
' Cincinnati, 1857.
* Docld, Mead & Co., New York, 1884. 16

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

laatste wijziging 07-02-2023

1 gedigitaliseerd

049 Shanties From The Seven Seas

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THE ART OF THE RHANTYMAN
We dug his grave with a silver spade, And lowered him down with a golden chain. Who's bin here since I've bin gone? A nice little gal wid bootees on. There once was a farmer in Sussex did dwell, Now he is dead and he's gone to Hell.
And there are countless others. In Negro spirituals and revivalist songs too, wording similar to
that found in shanties often appears. Arnold in Songs of Sea Labour states that many of the Negro slave-songs sung during the revival meetings of the Jubilee Singers touring Great Britain bore striking resemblance to both the shanty tunes and those of the Sankey and Moody collection. Many of the Negro slave-songs were work-songs— digging, planting, cane-cutting, peanut-picking, corn-shucking, cotton-picking, and cotton-stowing songs—as were the songs sung by Negroes employed in the railway gangs of Young America. Many of these songs have been made popular on the radio under the collective name of skiffle. Gordon in Adventure gives a song sung by Negro gangs as they drove the spikes in the railroad ties formed like and used in a similar manner to the sailor's shanty:
Ole Aunt Dinah, Bumpy ditty bump-bump.' Settin' in de co'nah, Bumpy ditty bump.'
In the main body of this work many instances are given of the
railway gang songs of Negroes adapted by seamen as shanties. Then we have the labour songs of the Negro stevedores and wharf workers. These in the main came from the cotton stowers of the Gulf Ports— New Orleans, Mobile, and so on. Bone, Laughton, Doerflinger, and others have shown how white seamen picked up these ditties from the cotton stowers or 'hoosiers' and made use of them at capstan and halyard. But, apart from Bone, Doerflinger is the only writer who has discovered in literature the fact that white men as well as Negroes were engaged in this cotton-stowing business. He points out that these white men were in the main seamen from the North Atlantic Packet Ships, and the job of stowing cotton down the dark holds of ships, forcing the cotton bales in tightly by means of jackscrews—a job requiring much shantying—was done just as ably by the whites as by the darkies. He cites Charles Erskinc {Twenty Tears Before the Mast^) on the fact that many of these white men were seamen from Boston, and E. I. Barra {A Tale of Two Oceans''), who describes how the seamen from the Liverpool Packets would dodge the Winter North Atlantic by jumping their ships and heading south to the ' Boston, i8f)o.
* San Francisco, 1893. 15

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

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THE ART OF THE SHANTYMAN
work-songs and shanties were nothing more than English folk-songs taken out to the West Indies and Southern States by white P.O.W.s transported after the Monmouth Rebellion to the Caribbean.^ Often in these matters the question is which came first, the chicken or the egg? R. W. Gordon {Adventure: 'Old Songs That Men Have Sung'),
writing about songs that have 'authors', points out that occasionally a certain song has an 'author' version and a version partly composed by the folk. Sometimes the work of an author has been taken and altered by the folk, and sometimes an author has taken as his basis a genuine folk-song altered to suit himself Many minstrel songs were based upon or contained folk material; but sometimes, to make matters more complicated, such material returns to the folk and 'exerts an influence on true folk-song'. He points out that maybe a 'modem folk text and a modern "author" text' come from a common source. 'I t is never safe to be dogmatic in any case unless all the evidence is in.' The great folk-song collector Cecil Sharp found many 'genuine' American folk-songs to have old English roots. The job of tracing folk-songs may be difficult, but the arduous task of tracking down the origins of shanties is infinitely more so. The influence of the 'nigger minstrel' on shantying is plainly emphasized by Doerflinger, who points out that the Sailors of the Sail would naturally frequent the 'melodeons' and 'concert saloons' of both America and England, where they would hear many nigger minstrel ditties suitable for use at capstan and halyard—the ditties of Pompey Smash, Gumbo Chaff, and Liza Lee, all noted nigger minstrels. Also he would more than likely buy the cheap song-books of the period known as 'Ethiopian Songsters'. Many of these minstrel songs, as well as being pseudo-Negro ditties, were traditional Negro folk material, and both the real Negro songs and the adapted ones would be appropriated by the seamen. Doerflinger gives Do Johnny Baker, A Long Time Ago, and De Camptown Races as minstrel choruses which the seaman took to sea with him and turned into 'genuine' shanties. The following couplets are to be found both in the shanties and
Negro and minstrel song, and in some cases in English and American folk-song and 'hobo' songs.
Where there ain't no snow, And the winds don't blow.
What d'you think we had for supper? Possum tails and a donkey's crupper.
If whisky was a river and I could swim, I'd take a jump and dive right in.
' The Seven Seas Shanty flooX, John Sampson. Booscy & Co., Ltd., London, 1927. 14

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

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THE ART OF THE SHANTYMAN
to publish shanties with their tunes. Searching through Olmstead's book—Incidents of a Whaling Voyage (1839-40); Scenery, Manners and Customs and Missionary Stations of the Sandwich and Society Islands^—I found on page 115 a few paragraphs referring to shanty- ing aboard the author's ship, the New America:
. . . there are many songs in common use among seamen of a very lively character, which though bereft of all sentiment and sense in many in- stances are performed with very good effort when there is a long line of men hauling together. Mr. Freeman usually officiates as chorister and with many demisemiquavers strikes up the song, while all the rest join in the chorus.
The two shanties he gives with tunes are Drunken Sailor and Nancy Fanana. On page 182 Olmstead mentions another shanty Oh, Hurrah My Hearties 0 ! which he says was sung when pulling out the teeth from the jaws of a sperm whale by means of a watch-tackle. It was obviously a bowline or foresheet shanty, now unfortunately lost for ever. As Bone^ remarks, instead of diminishing shantying grew stronger
as sail competed with steam. Ashore, as mechanization grew apace, the work-songs of the folk naturally died, but at sea the arrival of engines was an incentive to the men of the poorly manned, larger sized windbags to haul and heave all the harder to help their out- moded ships keep their position, and this meant more shantying than ever.
Alden(?) {Harper's Magazine) mentions a shanty—'pulling, with
two different choruses'—used in a steamship in 1882, so it would appear that shanties were still sung even in the sail-carrying steamers of the 'transition period'. Captain Robinson and other competent observers have pointed out that steam-power was never used for setting sail aboard such steamers, and, as long as the old Packet Rat survived to man the ship-, barque-, and brig-rigged steamers of the Cunard, Union, Inman, White Star, and National Steamship Lines, shanties were still to be heard on their decks.
Whence came these working-songs of the sea? Many writers have tried to solve this puzzle. I have worked unceasingly in this direction, and in the main body of this work I have included as much information as I have been able to find regarding the origin of each shanty; but here I will deal with this question in a general way. As already pointed out, Negroes, those of the West Indies and the Southern States of America, were responsible for quite a number of these songs. Sampson has voiced an opinion that many of the Negro
' New York, 1841. * Capstan Bars by Capt. D. W. Bone, Porpoise Press, Exlinburgh, 1931. 13

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

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THE ART OF THE SHANTYMAN
back breadfruit to grow as slave food, which if it had succeeded would have conferred a benefit on slave-owners.)
After harvest . . . slaves were most costly to support in the winter months. The owners found a solution to this recurring problem. They hired them out as crews for America's growing mercantile marine.
This practice, he writes, was especially common in coastwise
ships, but I rather feel, historically, it was not such a common practice as he implies. He then goes on to say:
To lighten labour and solace woe, the Negroes sang their nostalgic planta- tion songs, using them as their free forbears had used them in the Gambia jungles to induce combined effort. Then an occasional white man would sign on . . . and hear these songs, and when he joined another ship he would sing them and his new shipmates found them attractive and helpful. . . . Since the blacks used their own jabber . . . the borrowers fitted their
own words to the catchy tunes . . . (often) ribald, obscene and a means of administering reproofs to the little liked afterguard.
Even in Dana's journal the crews of American ships mentioned
seem very mixed. Apart from a few Boston and Cape Cod boys the older seamen were English, Scotch, German, Frenchmen, African Negroes, and South Sea Islanders. Cheerily Men, sung repeatedly aboard the ships Dana sailed in, is a
hundred per cent British shanty of fair antiquity. From the eighteen-twenties to the eighteen-sixties was the 'great constructive period of shanties'—a phrase used by Laughton. In ships such as the Western Ocean Packets, the Indiamen, the California Hide Traders, the Timber Droghers, the Cotton Traders, the Australian Traders, and the Cape Homers carrying thousands of people to the Gold Rush of the Sacramento River (1849), new shanties were produced and earlier ones developed and altered for the better. Strangely enough the clippers (American and British) of the China Tea Trade produced little if anything new in the way of shanties, and it can be safely said that from 1860 onwards the production of new shanties ceased entirely. The Crimean War (1854), the American Civil War (1861-5), and the Boer War (1900) produced marching songs which Seamen of the Sail took, altered, and adapted as shanties to suit their own needs at the capstan. However, as I have shown elsewhere, foreign seamen did devise 'new' shanties, from older English sea-songs, for some time after this.
Doerflinger, the most painstaking shanty research worker of
recent times, gives a certain Francis Allyn Olmstead as the first man 12

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

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THE ART OF THE SHANTYMAN
believed to have come from an earlier Negro version Knock a Man Down, and Western Ocean {Leave Her, Johnny) in its earliest form Across the Rocky Mountains is probably a Negro-Irish mixture. Incidentally, it would appear that shanties of unmistakable Negro parentage were rarely heard aboard British Tea Clippers or East Indiamen. Some American writers suggest that shantying—an art of peace—was developed by white Americans during the period when England was at war with France and her allies and therefore an unfruitful field for the growth of work-songs. I agree that in British ships, on account of the pressing of merchant seamen into the Navy and the very fact that merchant ships were in themselves semi-naval, the art of shantying during these eventful years was at a low ebb, but then again America had her War of Independence from 1775 to 1783, followed by the war of 1812—hardly a very peaceful period!
It seems reasonable enough to suppose that in both countries shanties did develop in a minor fashion, but it was not until 1815, the rebirth of the British Merchant Service and the renewed growth of the young American Merchant Marine, that shantying really came into its own in both countries. By the 1820s shantying was on a fairly equal footing in both English and American ships, but as the new merchant service of the younger country advanced with its smart packet ships of hitherto unseen design—ships much faster than those of Britain—shantying must obviously have developed to a greater degree aboard such ships than in the more cautious, slower water-pushers of the Old Country. But then again, apart from the afterguard, the crews of such ships were in the main seamen from Britain, it being a known fact that from 1830 onwards many Americans 'swallowed the anchor' and went west in search of em- ployment, leaving the packets and later clippers in the hands of Irishmen and seamen from Liverpool and Scandinavia. Captain Frank Shaw writes in Chapter 12, 'Shipsavers', of his
book Splendour of the Seas: My own theory is that the sea-shanty first began really to flourish in
the days of the hard run Yankee clippers. Many of the songs are un- doubtedly of American origin and some of plantation origin, down to a fine point.
Take Roll the Cotton Down . . . (it) goes on to describe the dreary life of a plantation slave more than that of a seaman . . . the reason is not hard to seek. American and West Indian slave owners were not philan- thropists. . . .
The trouble with slave-owning was that the human cattle must eat, no matter whether they worked or not.
(And here he mentions the fruitless expedition of Bligh to bring I I

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

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STORMY ALONG, JOHN The 'livening-up' pattern runs:
1. I wisht I wuz o r Stormy's son, I'd build a ship o' a thousand ton.
2. I'd sail this wide world round an' round, With plenty o' money I'd be found.
3. We'd sail this ol' world round an' round, An' get hot rum oh, I'll be bound.
4. I'd load her up with Jamaicy rum, An' all mc shellbacks they'd have some.
5. We'd git our drinks, lads, every man, With a bleedin' big bottle for the shantyman.
6. I'd load 'er up with grub an' gin. An' stay in the port that we wuz in.
7. I'd feed ye well, an' raise yer pay, An' stand ye drinks three times a day.
8. An' whin we git to Liverpool Town, We'll dance them judies round an' round.
9. Oh, Stormalong an' around we'll go, Oh, Stormalong through ice an' snow.
Lowlands has a similar livening-up set of verses. Another fairly popular stanza was:
When Stormy died he made a will. To give us sailors gin to swill.
Sharp gives:
Was ye ever in Quebec, A-stowing timber on the deck.''
I wish I was in Baltimore, On the grand old American shore.
For similar verses see Tom's Gone to Hilo, Highland Laddie, A Young Thing, Lately Left Her Mammy-0, and Donkey Riding.
STORMY ALONG, JOHN
Alternative titles, Stormalong John, Come-along, Git-along, Stormalong John
^^H^ffiTh Oh.. . il l ^__J _1. ^ ' /IL \._ I ,. 1__. .k . 1__^ e t Stotiij^SgoytÖ^ot g<xxio)'r)o<),Stoni)Valor]g W.Sloi»)!» m xTm W9 Xoxy^^i^^S^iiiam»^ jiJJjJiJJ]JJ3lJ>lJJ-JlJJ .
if)<it goooi ol'ii)oi>', Oh - ha ! Co>i)t alor>g ^italopg , StOTn)v a- loijg Joj>p .' 69
« )nnA Tnkr, I • i

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

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MISTER STORMALONG
2. Of all cl' skippers [the sailors] he was best, Ch. To me way you Stormalong!
But now he's dead an' gone to rest, Ch. Ay! ay! ay! Mister Stormalong!
3. He slipped his cable off Cape Horn, Close by the place where he was bom.
4. Oh, off Cape Horn where he was born, Our sails wuz torn an' our mainmast gorn.
5. We'll dig his grave with a silver spade. His shroud of finest silk was made.
6. We lowered him down with a golden chain. Our eyes all dim with more than rain.
7. He lies low in his salt-sea [earthen] bed. Our hearts are sore, our eyes wuz red.
8. An able seaman bold an' true, A good ol' skipper [bosun] to his crew.
9. He's moored at last an' furled his sail. No danger now from wreck or gale.
10. Old Stormy heard the Angel call, So sing his dirge now one an' all.
11. Oh, now we'll sing his funeral song, Oh, roll her over, long an' strong.
12. Old Stormy loved a sailors' song. His voice wuz tough an' rough an' strong.
13. His heart wuz good an' kind an' soft, But now he's gone 'way up aloft.
14. For fifty years he sailed the seas. In winter gale and summer breeze.
15. But now o r Stormy's day is done; We marked the spot where he is gone.
16. So we sunk him under with a long, long roll. Where the sharks'11 have his body, an' the divil have his soul.
17. An' so o r Stormy's day wuz done, South fifty six, west fifty one.
18. o r Stormy wuz a seaman bold, A Grand Ol' Man o' the days of old.
Some versions say he was buried 'in Sailortown, down Mobile
Bay'. Perry calls him 'Old Storm an' Blow', a name found more usually in Negro versions.
68

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

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AT THE JIGGITY-JIG PUMP ^Ay! ay! ay! Mister Stormalong!' (Pumping Shanty)

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

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MISTER STORMALONG
In many of the Stormalong songs there were two patterns: (1) Praising the dead seaman, (2) Praising the benevolent son of the dead seaman.
The second pattern was usually added after the dirge-like regulation stanzas had run out. Mister Slormalong has several chorus patterns. The 'Ay, ay, ay' was always yelled out staccato.
To me, way you, Stormalong, Ay, ay, ay, Capen Stormalong. Yi, yah, yah, Mister Stormalong, To me, way ho. Storm and Blow. (Ferry)
(This was an inverse form like that mentioned in the case oi Low- lands.)
To me way you Stormalong, Fi-i-i, Massa Stormalong.
To me way yah Stormalong, Aye, aye, aye. Mister Stormalong.
To me way hay hay, we'll stormalong, With me a-yo, Stormalong. (John Perring) (Inverse pattern)
Tibby way you Stormalong, Hay, hay, hay. Massa Stormalong.
An inversion of refrains is noted in the Journal of the Folk Song
Society, sung by John Farr, aged seventy-six, to a collector called Thomas (1926). The singer gave words from another shanty, Whisky Johnny.
Whisky is the life of man, Ch. Hi, hi, hi, Mister Stormalong!
Whisky is the life of man, Ch. To me way-O, Stormalong!
MISTER STORMALONG
Alternative titles, Stormalong, Captain Stormalong C^ ^ (g UttU fkit«r/
OU Ststi^^ ^t i» cliod. 6n tod Op' Oor9,~1ói^ üor9,TóiK wov you Stonn^-toratl^cl y 3tanp«-{<ir)ft|( StoiQ-V I H '» in^.yhi i%
66

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

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LOWLANDS LOW
2. The o r Man hails from Barbadoes, Ch. Lowlands, Lowlands, Loitilands Low.
He's got the name Ol' Hammertoes, Ch. Z,o£flands, Lowlands, Z^wlands Low.
3. He gives us bread as hard as brass, Our junk's as salt as Balaam's ass.
4. The monkey's rigged in the sojer's clo'es. Where he gottem from God 'lone knows.
5. We'll haul 'em high an' let 'em dry. We'll trice 'em up into de sky.
6. Lowlands, me boys, an' up she goes, Git changed, me boys, to yer shore-goin' clo'es.
A fine old shanty was Stormalong. Like Lowlands Away it was originally used at the pumps and later sung at the capstan. Although there are those who believe it was built around John Willis—the owner of the Cutty Sark—there is no doubt at all but that it is of Negro origin, and of much older vintage than the Cutty Sark period. Negro songs are to be found with Stormalong Stormy refrains dating
back to the thirties and forties in the 'Ethiopian Collections' of Negro folk-song (see Bibliography), and Nordhofl' gives one form sung in the thirties by the hoosiers of the Gulf Ports. All the variants of this song have come from, or at some time or another passed through and have been moulded in, the shanty mart of Mobile Bay. Many of the couplets found in Stormalong are in other Negro songs. Quite recently I heard the American folk-singer Burl Ives singing over the radio 'Go on Blue, I finally got there too', in which the following lines also found in the shanty were used:
Lowered him down with a golden chain, and Dug his grave with a silver spade. Here is a list of the Stormalong family:
(i) Mister Stormalong. Pumps; Colcord: capstan; Terry and Sharp: halyards; Doerflinger gives it in his capstan, windlass, and pumps section; C. F. Smith gives it as pumps and capstan.
(2) Stormy Along, John. Pumps; Sharp, Terry, and L. A. Smith give it as capstan; Colcord gives pumps; Masefield gives halyards.
(3) Stormalong, Boys, Stormy. Halyards. (4) Way Stormalong John. Halyards. (5) Walk Me Along, Johnny {Storm an' Blow). Halyards; cotton stowers' chant.
(6) Yankee John, Stormalong. Halyards. 65

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

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LOWLANDS LOW
8. Oh, say wuz ye never down in Mobile Bay? A-screwin' cotton all the day.
9. Oh, me poor ol' mother, oh, she wrote to me, She wrote to me to come home from sea.
10. We'll heave 'er up from down below, Oh, heave 'er up an' away we'll go!
11. Oh, I thought I heard the Ol' Man say, He'd give us rum three times a day.
(From here onwards livelier words to put life into the otherwise mournful proceedings were usually inserted. These were much the same as the stanzas used to enliven Stormalong.)
12. I wished I had ten thousand f)Ound, I'd steer me ship for miles around.
13. I'd load her up with grub an' gin. An' stay in the port where we wuz in.
14. I'd stand ye drinks three times a day. An' feed ye well an' raise yer pay.
15. With a bully ship an' a bully crew. An' a bucko skipper for to kick her through.
16. Oh, I wished I wuz in Liverpool Town, With them Liverpool judies I'd dance around.
17. Wake up, yer bitch, an' let us in. Wake up, yer bitch, 'cos we want some gin.
My next shanty is also of the Lowlands family, but this was a
halyard song. I had it from Old Smith of Tobago, a fine old coloured shantyman who gave me many little-known shanties, in the thirties when I was shipmates with many West Indian seamen. Sharp gives a Bristol version very similar to mine—of course it is a West Indian song, and many of the shanties Sharp collected around the Bristol channel area he had from seamen who had served in ships in the West Indian trade (sugar and rum), many of which had chequer- board crews, i.e. one watch white and one watch coloured. Sharp gives an introductory chorus.
LOWLANDS LOW (Halyards)
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Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

laatste wijziging 07-02-2023

1 gedigitaliseerd

049 Shanties From The Seven Seas

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LOWLANDS OR MY DOLLAR AN A HALF A DAY
to be the only shanty in which Sailor John allowed 'sob-stuff', indicating, of course, a positive shore ancestry. We now come to the Southern States version—A Dollar an'' a Half
a Day. Bullen believes it to be of Negro origin, Whall calls it 'Ameri- can', from the cotton ports. Sampson disagrees and says it is English, having been taken out to the West Indies by the P.O.W.s óf the Monmouth Rebellion, and Doerflinger too thinks it a British song, taken to the Gulf ports by the English and Irish packet seamen who worked there loading cotton. Colcord says that this is what happened to the preceding Lowlands when the Negroes of Mobile Bay got hold of it. All of these theories have much to support them, but wherever the place of origin the only sure point is that this is a shanty which at some time or other passed through the shanty mart of Mobile and was moulded accordingly.
LOWLANDS or MY DOLLAR AN' A HALF A DAY lr>lrod|ucu
^ Solo W¥^ (La^ fwo lr<LT» TTfi^y also \>t 9^ g (U |o)lows )
^^^^^m E
dUi)'1<uai)'a holt a i <iay /
2. A white man's pay is rather high. Ch. Lowlands, Lowlands, away, my John!
A black man's pay is rather low, Ch. My dollar an' a half a day.
3. Five dollars a day is a hoosier's pay, Five dollars a day is a hoosier's pay.
4. A dollar an' a half a day is a mallow's pay, A dollar an' a half a day won't pay my way.
5. Oh what shall we poor shellbacks do? We've got no money an' we can't git home.
6.
I packed me bag an' I'm bound away, I'm bound away for Mobile Bay.
7. We're bound away for Mobile Bay, We're bound away at the break o' day.
63 X I r^___^ ^:JrJ|JjjJ ••• • Djj^nn:rr i ^ ^ dov. Q doMor ar)'a JioIJa day l« a P'^ - ^»t« fcay. Low lo9dl,UwJo^3«-IWoy ijy i JoU, Ï thowg|)t I htoni oar OU ÏTJarj say, Wy cU-W on' a haW day ;

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

laatste wijziging 07-02-2023

1 gedigitaliseerd

049 Shanties From The Seven Seas

Delen

Duurzaam webadres

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Stel een vraag of plaats een opmerking op de tijdlijn

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LOWLANDS AWAY
9. 'I will cut away my bonnie hair, No other man will think me fair.'
10. I bound the weeper round my head, For now I knew my love was dead.
11. My love is drowned in the windy Lowlands, My love is drowned in the windy Lowlands.
LOWLANDS AW AT [a] (ii) (Same tune as (a) (i))
Introduclion-Chorus
Lowlands, Lowlands, away, my John, Lowlands away I heard them say, My Lowlands away.
1. I dreamed a dream the other night, Ch. Lowlands, Lowlands, away, my John.
My love she came dressed all in white, Ch. My Lowlands away.
2. I dreamed my love came in my sleep. Her cheeks were wet—her eyes did weep.
3. She came to me as my best bride, All dressed in white like some fair bride.
4. And bravely in her bosom fair, A red, red rose did my love wear.
5. She made no sound—no word she said, And then I knew my love was dead.
6. I bound the weeper round my head. For now I knew my love was dead.
7. She waved her hand—she said goodbye, I wiped the tear from out my eye.
8. And then awoke to hear the cry, 'Oh, watch on deck, oh, watch ahoy!'
Variations on the chorus are:
Lowlands, Lowlands, hurrah my Jo, Lowlands, high. Lowlands, alay!
Lowlands, Lowlands, hooraw my John, My Lowlands aray!
This was a shanty in which 'stringing out' was carried out—that
is repeating the solo lines to make the song last out. It appears to me 62

Shanties From The Seven Seas,

Titel:

Shanties From The Seven Seas

Naam uitgever:

MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM

Jaar van uitgave:

First Published 1961

Taal:

Engels

Aantal pagina's:

430

Plaats van uitgave:

Connecticut

Auteur:

Collected by Stan Hugill

Voorbeeld : Klik op de tekst voor meer

Organisatie: Shanty Nederland

laatste wijziging 07-02-2023

1 gedigitaliseerd

049 Shanties From The Seven Seas

Delen

Duurzaam webadres

Mijn Studiezaal

Stel een vraag of plaats een opmerking op de tijdlijn

Reageren