Hi,

Adding some more notes here about this well-known chantey. I was recently looking into some references about its origins, and here's some stuff I came up with. No doubt some redundancies with info in other, ~scattered~ Mudcat threads, but the effort is to bring the historical references together a bit. I don't give the full info on all references (which I'd have to dig up), but that's usually since they aren't all that significant. So...

AKA, "Poor Old Man," this chantey is well represented in early literature, no doubt because of the colorful "ceremony" that it was used to accompany. Indeed, some interpreters nowadays (e.g. Mystic Seaport Chanteymen) class this song as a "ceremonial chantey." And Hugill supposed it became used as a regular halyard chantey only after the "dead horse ceremony" had died out. However, after reviewing the literature, I am not convinced of this categorization/interpretation. As "Poor Old Man"—the chorus found in nearly all documented versions—it was often a halyard chantey for actual use, in which case the verses would most likely not include the special emphases on the "dead horse." Notably, Hugill's version is one of few that gives as a possible chorus, "Poor Old HORSE." Naturally, that would wrap up the desired picture of the "ceremonial chantey" in a tidy fashion.

The original (pre-chantey) emphasis of the verses were concerned with the poor old ~man~. In fact, the core few verses first turn up in minstrel song compositions.
A version of the famous song "Clare de Kitchen," 1832 contains the following lines:

I went to de creek, I cou'dn't get a cross,
I'd nobody wid me but an old blind horse;
But old Jim Crow came riding by,
Says he, old fellow your horse will die.
Its Clare de kitchen old folks, young folks,…
(appears in Lhamon 2003)

Incidentally, while Colcord and Doerflinger made this connection, Hugill wrote "I fail to see any connection"; he must have been looking the "wrong" versions of the song, since the connection is plain.

These lines float into other songs associated with African-American traditions. "Charleston Gals," as it appears in Allen et.al.'s milestone SLAVE SONGS OF THE UNITED STATES (1867), contains these lines:

As I walked down the new-cut road,
I met the tap and then the toad;
The toad commenced to whistle and sing,
And the possum cut the pigeon wing.
Along come an old man riding by:
Old man, if you don't mind, your horse will die;
If he dies I'll tan his skin,
And if he lives I'll ride him agin.
Hi ho, for Charleston gals!...

In Talley's NEGRO FOLK RHYMES (1922), these verses turn up in the song labeled "He is My Horse":

One day as I wus a-ridin' by,
Said dey: "Ole man, yo' hoss will die"—
"If he dies, he is my loss;
An' if he lives he is my hoss."

Nex' day w'en I come a-ridin' by,
Dey said: "Ole man, yo' hoss may die."—
"If he dies, I'll tan 'is skin;
An' if he lives. I'll ride 'im ag'in."

I even find a reference (Wells 1920) that quotes these lines as a "lullaby." They turn up in many casual literary references, where the common emphasis is the happy-go-lucky or indifferent sentiment of the "old man"—of course, this happy-go-lucky character (who couldn't care less if his horse died or not) is one of the comedic "Negro character types" of minstrelsy—though it also turns out to be a kind of sentiment found in songs sung by sailors.

Having adopted these floating lines, the chantey builds along the theme of a very different type of "dead horse." (cf. the chantey "Fire Down Below," which uses the idea of "fire" in many different literal and metaphorical ways in the same piece.) This was in reference to the phrase, "working off a dead horse," which described the fact that for the first month of a voyage, sailors were essentially working off money they had already spent – the advance pay they had spent on gear before the voyage, more than likely boozed away.

The ceremony marked the end of that month, to celebrate the fact that from then on the sailors would actually be earning something. It involved constructing an effigy of a horse. Bullen (1914) said it was just a bundle of combustibles, while some others describe it as a more accurate likeness to a horse, made perhaps of a barrel, bits of old rope, and straw. It was paraded up and down the deck, before being hoisted up to the main or fore yardarm, to the rhythm of this chantey. (Harlow said it might also be dropped in the sea from the cathead.) At the conclusion of the song, a sailor up on the yard would cut the rope and let the horse drop into the sea. Ex-sailor Bullen said that it was set afire, and that its fall was done to the "deafening accompaniment of piercing yells and shouts," while Cecil Sharp (1914) claimed the horse was dropped in silence. Doerflinger (1951) claimed that the ceremony was done with more formality aboard British ships, and that by 1890 it had died out. Colcord (1924) said she never heard of it aboard American ships, but Harlow's description and other references contradict that.

I find the first reference to this chantey in Camden's 1869 THE BOYS OF AXLEFORD as a pumping chantey, followed by a description in CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL, 1879. Tangye's 1883 account of a voyage from Australia gives a detailed description of the ceremony.   The first big chantey collection, Davis & Tozer (1886) has it. Then: Jeynkins (1892), Richards (1897), and Boston Seaman's Friend Society (1900). In 1906 it is given as a halyard chantey in both the Journal of the American Folk Lore Society (Hutchinson) and in Masefield's SEA SONGS—as "Poor Old Joe." The ex-seamen Whall (1910), Lubbock (1915), and Robinson (1917) mention it next, besides Bullen and Sharp (1914). RR Terry (1921) said it was for hauling and pumping. Frothingham (1924), Shay (1927), Bone (1931), and even Sandburg, in THE AMERICAN SONG-BAG (1927) have it. Colcord (1924) had it for halyards and sometimes capstan even! Most instructive are Harlow's observations, from sailing in the 1870s. He actually gave "Poor Old Joe" (halyards or hand over hand), along with "Poor Old Man" with a slightly different melody…AND "The Dead Horse," i.e. 3 diff. chanteys!

We are lucky to have the clear recording of Capt. Leighton Robinson, an old shellback who gives a stately version of "The Dead Horse." Some more recent versions tend to be more up-tempo and rhythmic, as the Mystic Seaport Chanteymen's version. Note that a facsimile of the hoisting of the dead horse has long been a part of Mystic Seaport's program. As interpreted by staff member Don Sineti, it is a favorite with (and geared towards) children visitors. A video of that can be seen at this link:

link