Gibb-

You asked what C. Fox Smith had to say about this song in , © 1927, p. 30-31:

Halliard Shanty

"Lowlands away" is the classic example of one of the outstanding characteristics of the shanty; namely, the way in which the most trivial and indeed meaningless words are wedded to haunting and beautiful melodies.

The more modern words -- not that they are really very modern, since they were already well-known in the 'fifties and practically extinct before the 'eighties, very few of the younger generation of sailing ship men having ever heard the shanty -- are a debased version of a still older song. The horrible material refrain of "A dollar and a half a day," which is so hopelessly out of keeping with the sad, lingering cadence of the melody, and the references to "hoosiers" and such strange waterfowl, are quite obviously later interpolations. The older version is on the familiar theme of the dead lover, so popular with the folk singer, to whom and to whose audiences a thoroughly miserable story was as the breath of life; and the "Lowlands" refrain is found in more than one old song and ballad, like the well-known "Golden Vanitee," and that which tells how "The Lowlands of Holland have twined my Love and me."

Smith definitely made her point of view quite clear!

She provides two versions of the shanty:

Version A

Lowland, lowlands, away my John!
Lowlands away, I heard them say,
Lowlands, lowlands, away my John!
Lowlands away, I heard them say --
My dollar and a half a day!

A dollar a day is a hoosier's pay --
Lowlands, lowlands, away my John!
A dollar a day is a hoosier's pay --
My dollar and a half a day!

Oh my old mother wrote to me --
Lowlands, lowlands, away my John!
She wrote to me to come home from sea
My dollar and a half a day!

Lowlands away, I heard them say,
Lowlands, lowlands, away my John!
Lowlands away, I heard them say --
My dollar and a half a day!

Version B (same melody)

I dreamed a dream the other night --
Lowlands, lowlands, away my John!
I dreamed a dream the other night --
My lowlands away!

I thought I saw my own true love --
Lowlands, lowlands, away my John!
I thought I saw my own true love --
My lowlands away!

I thought my love was drowned and dead --
Lowlands, lowlands, away my John!
I thought my love was drowned and dead --
My lowlands away!

I believe she preferred Version B.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble