Time to log in another chantey to this list.

"Mobile Bay" aka "John Come Tell Us as We Haul Away"

Print: Hugill; Lubbock (1906); Davis and Tozer (1906 expanded edition); Colcord
Performers: Kasin and Adrianowicz (2005); Bristol Shantymen; The Shanty Crew; Stare Dzwony (Polish); William Warfield (classical); Marc Bernier?

The chantey is cited in a 1906 text, JACK DERRINGER: A TALE OF DEEP WATER, by Basil Lubbock. The men are at the pumps. It says:

//Jack, of course, was not the man to let the
opportunity go by without a chanty, and started
on with :

" Were you never down in Mobile bay ? "

The whole watch thundered in the chorus with
the exception of the gambler, who kept all his
breath for his mutinous talk in the foc's'le.

As they swung the bars, deep came the note :

"John, come tell us as we haul away."
(JACK) "A-screwing cotton all the day."
(Chorus) "John, come tell us as we haul away.

Aye, aye, haul, aye !
John, come tell us as we haul away."

Then Jack went on :

"What did I see in Mobile Bay?"
(Chorus) "John, come tell us as we haul away."
(JACK) " Were the girls all fair and free and gay 1 "
(Chorus) "John, come tell us as we haul away.

Aye, aye, haul, aye !
John, come tell us as we haul away."

(JACK) "Oh! This I saw in Mobile Bay/
(Chorus) " So he tells us as we haul away."
(JACK) "A pretty girl a-making hay."
(Chorus) " So he tells us as we haul away.

Aye, aye, haul, aye !
So he tells us as we haul away." //

In the same year, it was added to Davis & Tozer's collection.

Colcord (1924) does not give a full text. Hers comes from a "Negro shantyman."

Harlow (1928), who had heard it in the 1870s, says it is West Indian and used for hoisting cargo from the holds of ships. His text is maybe the rarest and particularly "ethnic."

William Warfield, circa 1950s, recorded a classical (voice and piano) arrangement – I'm guessing it is based in Davis and Tozer's book, however I don't have that book to compare. It has "heave away," so that should be a clue.

Hugill does not mention from whom he learned it, only citing the recording of chanteyman Stanley Slade of Bristol, who recorded it on HMV. This would have been sometime before the early 1950s. Where can one find this recording nowadays? I would think that if it was reasonably available in the 50s-60s, then there was at least one authentic oral source from which people may have continued the tradition of this chantey. If it was generally not heard, there is a case for saying the oral link to this one was fairly broken. Information on that recording would be appreciated.

In the most recent decades, "Mobile Bay" has been revived by several performers. Some of the recent ones (whose texts appear to be based in Hugill) overlap the solos and chorus, in a way that seems to me more befitting of a halyard chantey and not really workable (??) at the pumps. Their 3rd chorus phrase doesn't correspond to Hugill's or the other notations I've seen, so I wonder whether it is a misreading or if it is based in a particular, authentic oral source that I am not aware of. This different chorus is a feature of the recording by Mudcatter Radriano – I know he once had his album notes up, but I no longer find them. It will be good to hear is story about how he and Peter Kasin worked up a version.

The version I recorded, HERE, was based directly on Hugill's notation. It is also based in my belief that "Mobile Bay" was probably the root form of "John Kanaka." "Kanaka" seems to have been a much rarer chantey, and we know it really only because of Hugill's single-handed popularization of it. My 'theory' is that it was a variation of Mobile Bay, and that the "kanakanaka" part may have even started out as nonsense syllables or a parody, only later codified as something meaningfully related to Pacific sailors.