Hello leeneia,

I think it's not the song that's important, but the dancing movement that goes with it. It probably takes the strain off the back.

You make a very good point -- but of course, music is needed for dance, too. And don't forget about the strain on the MIND. Keeping the mind on the song keeps the mind off the strain on the back.

Hi Steve,

The sole job of shanties was to co-ordinate the timing of communal labour. If the above suggestions are correct this would be a quite different use for them. It can't have been a common usage otherwise there would be a section for 'Holystoning shanties' in all the major collections.

You are raising the key issue that I think is kinda why Barry started the thread way back -- why don't we hear of more "holystoning chanteys"? We do read mention in a few texts, like the LA Smith that KathyW quoted above. CF Smith gave a scrap of a holystoning chantey, and Stan Hugill reproduced that in his book. I have read a few more mentions, as in a Harper's Monthly article by Alden, I think around 1904. Consider also that chanteys were not "needed" for lots of other light hauling tasks and such, but they were probably used at times -- they just were not systematized into regular categories. A screwdriver drives screws as a category, though I may use it to open a pickle jar...I never call it a pickle-jar-opener.

Plenty of work songs don't go with communal labor that needs to be PRECISELY coordinated. They just keep up the work at a regular pace, AND keep up the motivation of the workers. I think you are right that, since holystoning did not REQUIRE coordinated action, there was no codified category for it. But how could a song not help? If we want to call a "chantey" any shipboard work-song, then we can call this one...but if we define chantey a little differently, that's OK too -- it's still a work chant!

Barry mentioned the idea of not having to count the number of strokes. We can see that in this contemporary video, they repeat a certain number of lines, then "Switch!", probably to the next plank. (I read somewhere that each plank was to get 32 strokes. As far as I can make out, "me so horny" covers 16 strokes, so I'm not sure what the "switch" is.)

This IS communal labor that need organization. Can you imagine everyone going at his own pace? They would be all over, and it would not be systematic.

There is also an aspect of INDIVIDUAL coordination ....well, not really coordination, but pacing. I sing chanteys to myself all the time when a task gets really tedious and I want to set a pace and coordinate my effort so I don't lag.

Hey Amos,

Any rhythmic shanty of a good tempo would do. The rhythm of "Banks of Newfoundland" would serve well, and I can't imagine why it wouldn't count.

Nah, the idea was just, "Don't nobody say 'Banks of N' just because it has the line (in SOME versions) of 'scrape 'er with holystone'" i.e. just because the song mentions holystone, that don't make it an authentic chantey for holystoning (if there was/is such a thing -- the question under discussion).

Did you have any chants when you used to do it?

Howdy Dave,

Some versions that people sing say "Shanghaied aboard a whaler." The main point is that, HOWEVER he got there, he was no sailor!

Gibb