This seems to be the most substantial thread of many, so I think I'll declare this our "origins" thread. We've had a lot of fun with this song in various threads, with a lot of innovative verses. I think it would be good to ask that we post lyrics only from documented sources in this thread, so we have one thread that more-or-less approaches authenticity. (please???)
Here's the Traditional Ballad Index entry for this song: Drunken Sailor, The (Early in the Morning) DESCRIPTION: Walkaway (stamp and go) shanty. The sailors ask, "What shall we do with the drunken sailor (x3), Early in the morning. Way, hey, and up she rises (x3), Early in the morning." Various suggestions are offered, few of them pleasant.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1841
KEYWORDS: shanty sailor drink punishment
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW,SE) Canada(Mar) Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (21 citations):
Wolford, p. 85=WolfordRev, p. 233, "Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
Doerflinger, p. 48, "The Drunken Sailor, or Early in the Morning" (1 text, 1 tune)
Walton/Grimm/Murdock, pp. 70-71, "The Drunken Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
Shay-SeaSongs, pp. 61-62, "Early in the Morning" (1 text)
BrownSchinhanV 783, "What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor?" (1 short text, 1 tune)
Smith/Hatt, p. 36, "What You Going To Do With a Drunken Sailor" (1 text)
Bone, pp. 40-41, "Early in th' Morning" (1 short text, 1 tune)
Colcord, p. 78, "The Drunken Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
Harlow, pp. 25-26, "The Drunken Sailor (Up She Rises)" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hugill, pp. 134-135, "Drunken Sailor" (2 texts, 2 tunes) [AbEd, pp. 109-110]
Sharp-EFC, VII, p. 8, "Drunken Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
SharpAp 257, "Up She Rises" (1 text, 1 tune, actually a playparty which shares only the chorus and a variant of the tune with "Drunken Sailor")
GreigDuncan1 4, "The Drunken Sailor" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Terry-Shanty1, #14, "What shall we do with the drunken sailor?" (1 text, 1 tune)
Opie-Game 129, "Drunken Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fireside, p. 176, "The Drunken Sailor"(1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 92, "What Shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor" (1 text)
Fuld-WFM, pp. 205-206, "Drunken Sailor (Monkey's Wedding -- John Brown Had a Little Injun -- Ten Little Injuns)"
DT, DRNKSILR
ADDITIONAL: Edwin F. Piper, "Some Play-Party Games of the Middle West" in The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. XXVIII, No. 109 (Jul 1915 (available online by JSTOR)), #19 p. 277 "Sailor" ("What shall we do with the drunken sailor?") (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Frederick Pease Harlow, _The Making of a Sailor, or Sea Life Aboard a Yankee Square-Rigger_, 1928; republished by Dover, 1988, p. 121, "The Drunken Sailor, or, Up She Rises" (1 text)
Roud #322
RECORDINGS:
Cadgwith Fishermen, "What Shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor?" (on LastDays)
Richard Maitland, "The Drunken Sailor" (AFS, 1936; on LC26)
Pete Seeger, "What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor?" (on PeteSeeger31)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Maria"
cf. "Ten Little Indians (John Brown Had a Little Indian)" (tune, floating lyrics)
cf. "The Mustering Song" (tune & meter)
cf. "I Had a Wife" (tune)
SAME TUNE:
What Shall We Do for the Striking Seamen? (Greenway-AFP, pp. 233-234)
What Do You Do with a Dirty Family? (Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 231)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Hooray an' Up She Rises"
Up She Rises
NOTES: A modern verse: "Put him in charge of an Exxon tanker..." - PJS
Bone says of this that it "must be of fairly recent date, for only in a comparatively large ship could there be room on deck for 'walking' a light sail aloft, the operation at which [this] was generally used. It was not a chanty often sung. I remember it chiefly as a showy accompaniment when all hands were employed on deck and there was an atmosphere of good humour with us." - RBW
Emrich has "What're ya gonna do with a drunken miner," (3x) "Early in the morning?" "Put him in a long hole till he's cooler" (3x) "Early in the morning" from Utah. (source: Duncan Emrich, "Songs of the Western Miners" in California Folklore Quarterly, Vol. I, No. 3 (Jul 1942 (available online by JSTOR)), pp.230-231, "What're Ye Gonna Do with a Drunken Miner?"). - BS
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File: Doe048
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Here's the version from the Digital Tradition. It's not like any other I've seen. Anybody know where it's from?
DRUNKEN SAILOR
cho: Way hay and up she rises
Way hay and up she rises (patent blocks o' diff'rent sizes)
Way hay and up she rises
Earl-eye in the morning
What shall we do with a drunken sailor (3x)
Earl-eye in the morning!
Put him in a long-boat till he's sober
Keep him there and make 'im bale 'er.
Trice him up in a runnin' bowline.
Tie him to the tasffrail when she's yard-arm under.
Put him in the scuppers with a hose-pipe on him.
Take 'im and shake 'im and try an' wake 'im.
Give 'im a dose of salt and water.
Give 'im a taste of the bosun's rope-end.
Stick on 'is back a mustard plaster.
Soak 'im in oil till he sprouts a flipper.
Shave his belly with a rusty razor.
Put him in the guard room till he gets sober.
note: Stamp-and-Go shanty
@sailor @work @drink
filename[ DRNKSILR
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