125 - Sally Brown A (Dick Maitland version) - Capstan Shanty


This I another "roll" shanty, the most famous "Roll an' Go!", also known as "Sally Brown". This song is a capstan shanty, as Stan Hugill mention it is only one theme of this song, and it is - all about Sally and her daughter. As an author of "Shanties from The Seven Seas" mentioned - there existed many obscene verses, which accounts partly for the fact that popularity never waned! This version was sung by Dick Maitland, a shantyman from who shanties were the core of the collection of William Main Doerflinger. Here is how this shanty was commented by Doerflinger: Favorite heroine of shanty lore was the beguiling, rum-drinking, fickle Sally Brown. "Some people might think Sally Brown was rather immoral," Dick Maitland philosophized, "but it was the way of the world in them days!"
"Shanties from the Seven Seas" by Stan Hugill (1st ed p 163, 164).


Sally Brown A (Dick Maitland version)

Saly Brown was a gay old lady,
   - Way-ay, Roll and go!
Oh, Saly Brown was a Creole lady,
   - Spend my money on Sally Brown!

                            *2*
She had a farm in the isle of Jamaica,
Where she raised sugarcane, rum an, terbacker.

                           *3*
Also she had a fine young daughter,
And that's the gal that I was after,

                           *4*
Seven long years I courted the daughter,
And when I asked her if she'd marry,

                           *5*
She would not have a tarry sailor!
She would not have a tarry sailor!

                           *6*
"Those lily-white hands and slender waist?
A tarry sailor I'll ne'er embrace!"

                           *7*
But now my troubles they're almost over,
Sally got married to a creol solider.

                           *8*
He beat and abused her and stole her money,
And left her with creol baby.

                           *9*
One night she was taken with a pain in her belly,
And they sent for a doctor and his name was kelly.

                           *10*
He rode a horse with a ropeyarn bridle,
And he laid young Sally on the table

                           *11*
And from her took a little tar baby.
Oh, Sally dear, why didn't you have me?