In "Folk Song in England," Lloyd writes that "the air of Africa seems to blow through...so many one-pull shanties such as 'Bring 'em down.'"

Lloyd writes in his notes to "Sea Shanties" (Topic, 1974), "'Bring 'em Down' — A heavy-haul one-pull shanty with a triple-stamp refrain. Some of the words refer to ports of Chile and Peru and the memorable girls thereof but that doesn't mean that this shanty was limited to the West Coast run."

The lyrics were pretty bawdy for 1961, when Lloyd recorded it on "A Sailor's Garland":

Rotherhithe girls they look so fine,
Never a day behind their time.

Callao girls I do adore,
Take it all and ask for more.

Vallipo girls they put out a show,
Waggle their arse with a roll-and-go!

The double entendre of the first two stanzas sounds like Lloyd's doing to me (Cf. "Sally Brown" and "Hilo John Brown" on the same LP) but the unsubtle third one sounds more like Hugill's (and his shipmates') style.

If (medium-sized "if") Lloyd really collected the song in 1953, it may have been just the structure and a line or two - from Stan Hugill, which Lloyd then elaborated on his own. If Hugill only knew a bit if it, he might not have thought to include it SftSS.

All conjecture, of course. There's no evidence. But it does make a good work song, so one hopes it isn't a fake.