The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #3503 Message #3956656
Posted By: GUEST,Julia L
14-Oct-18 - 05:47 PM
Thread Name: Songs about women & the sea
Subject: RE: Songs about women & the sea
Here's a version I transcribed from the Flanders collection
THE RAMBLING FEMALE SAILOR Jack McNally, Stacyville, Maine 8/28/1942 Helen Hartness Flanders Collection, Middlebury VT Note: Recording is compromised Singer's phrasing became uneven and breathless after the first verse
Come all you boys from far and near And listen to my ditty Whilst I do tell of a come-lie maid And she was both young and pretty This maid's true love was pressed away And drownded in some foreign sea Which caused this fair maid for to say "I will be a rambling sailor"
With the jacket blue and trousers white Just like some sailor neat and tight And the raging seas was the heart's delight Of the rambling female sailor From stem to stern she would free-lie go She braved all dangers and feared no foe But soon you'll hear of the overthrow Of the rambling female sailor
This maiden gay did a wager lay She would go aloft with any Aloft she went as they do tell Where she'd been ofttimes many In going aloft as they do tell She missed her hold and down she fell And she careless-lie bid this world farewell Did the rambling female sailor
And when her snow white breast was seen They took her to be some foreign queen Miss Rebecca Young it was the name Of the rambling female sailor On the river Sames she was known right well And few of the pretty girls could her excel But one fatal call was the sad downfall Of the rambling female sailor