Having stumbled across, and been humbled by the scholarship in this thread, it amused our late and great friend Barry Finn how little I knew about the songs I sing, It has amused me that guest suggested that some of the contributers hadn't actually done the work to the songs! When I think the work came first to them and the level of scholarship to the minute extrordinary! Anyway, my four penneth, I used to pull cables in, big ones, and we used a simple   1 - 2 - 3 -PULL, had I thought about it I could have tried a shanty or two but a) I was pulling and probably wouldn't have the breath for it (the others would have resented me sat on my arse telling them when to pull) and b) if I had been tallented enough to make up some funny lines on the hoof the crew might have laughed too much to pull!