This is an excerpt from a DRAFT of something I'm working on. The aim is to discuss "Cheer'ly Man" in its role/position along the development of shipboard work-songs and chanties.

Preceding this excerpt (in the thing I'm working on) is a discussion of early (from 18th century) shipboard working cries / chants / songs. NB: Most formatting (e.g. italics for emphasis) and footnotes are lost here.


"Cheer'ly Man": the proto-chanty?

According to my interpretations above, two phenomena, of sound created to accompany shipboard work, in Anglophone vessels, preceded the phenomenon of singing chanties in that context. One was instrumental music, which was heard during the first three decades of the 19th century in both military and (less so) merchant vessels. In the case of the latter, this phenomenon appears to have been gradually replaced by singing chanties after the 1830s, whereas in naval vessels the practice continued at least into the 1860s. As far as the history of chanties is concerned, this phenomenon represents a dead end, though it seems that at least one sailor work-song, "Drunken Sailor” (below) is in the style of the types of fiddle tunes that were once played. The other phenomenon, a vocal one, was the coordinating "cry," in use since the mid-18th century. Although some cries fell out of regular use in the early 19th century, some such cries of a "yo heave ho" variety persisted into the 1850s, and a similar phenomenon continued in use alongside chanties for short tasks until the end of the sailing era. Although these cries predated chanties, I do not believe that they developed into them directly, preferring to understand them as establishing a precondition that allowed for the later adoption of chanties.

This does not mean that European work-singing never "progressed" beyond simple cries. While I do not believe that the cries developed _into_ the chanty form as such, they did appear to develop. For hauling tasks, one rather distinct item developed that was more elaborate than a simple pull and which, while still distinguishable from later chanties, had some traits in common. This item may have been the first widely established sailors' work-song of the 19th century: "Cheer'ly Man." The song was applied to longer hauling tasks than could be served by a mere "heave ho." The most obvious of these would be that of hauling halyards. As noted, in vessels (i.e. military) with large crews, this job could be accomplished, without coordination per se, by simply "walking away" with the rope. A smaller crew, however, would need to organize the task into a series of short pulls. Although the idea that "Cheer'ly Man" developed to fill this need is speculative, one can see that the form of this song is like a series of cries, with "cheer'ly man" forming the phrase—hardly a chorus—in which all join in singing (or shouting) and on which all pull. An assortment of phrases, often of a bawdy nature, were called out by the soloist.

Though other or earlier work-cries were evidently too variable, non-descript, or incidental to receive titles, "Cheer'ly Man," perhaps due to its definite "chorus" phrase, was known by name. The song appears referred to by name several times in the first half of the 19th century. Like the "sing-outs," it lived on alongside later-styled chanties to be remembered even by sailors interviewed by J.M. Carpenter in the 1920s. Still, when writers of later days mentioned it, they regularly attributed it to an early period. When Englishman John Short, who began his sea career in the late 1850s, was interviewed by Sharp, he opined that it must have been the "first chantey ever invented." The American journalist Alden incorrectly believed that "Cheerly men," which he called an example of a song "unmistakably the work of English sailors of an uncertain but very remote period," was limited to English seamen. Nonetheless, he was able to distinguish it from the chanties of his day (1882).
[cont.]