The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #101326   Message #2060946
Posted By: Skivee
25-May-07 - 04:36 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Scottish Sea Shanties
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Scottish Sea Shanties
It seems that folks have a differing view on "what would a Scottish chantey be".
Most of us know that there were two major classes of these songs...the work songs and the forebitters songs for offduty singing.
The work songs were frequently used for specific work tasks, i.e. stamping the capstan, pumping out the ship, long haul/ short haul chanties. But the same tune could have very different words, or be used for different tasks on various ships. If the ship had a chantyman, he could be expected to make up verses on the fly. Some were quite proud of this skill.
The forebitters could be just about any song on any subject. That being said, the typical forebitter would not have been about ploughing fields, weaving fabric, milking cows, etc. Just because a task can be done to the meter of a given song or that it was a memorable song romanticising life's trials doesn't mean that it's a chanty.
The question was basically, "do you know any Scottish chanties".
Unfortunately, the only one I know is Highland Lassie.
My band has been singing Mist Covered mountains for 15 years now. It's a lovely song...one of our most popular offerings. It's not a Scottish chanty. We pretend that it's a sailors song, but it could be sung by any Scot return to his craggy home...his pointy mountains under clouds. There's nothing that I'm aware of to suggest that Scottish sailors ever sang this as a chanty.
Similarly, Archie Fisher's song isn't a shanty, but a highly evocative and very modern song about the decline of the Scottish fisheries. The boats he was talking about were modern small net haulers, with electric winches. No chanty singing involved.
I do hope that Mr. MacDonald's question stirs up enough interest that some more actual Scottish chanties come to light.