Gibb Sahib wrote: Hence the confusion.

Sorry about that. Yes, if you're in the key of Am, the issue is whether you use a D chord, or an F chord -- or a Dm chord -- on the word "name" in the second line "And the NAME of the ship was Billy of Tea." The Colquhoun book specifies D, and that's the chord I play.

I can't claim to have spotted this. John Roberts did. We were discussing "Wellerman," and I complained about the versions that were coming out on YouTube. He asked me to send him a recording of the way I learned it, and I did. He commented that I was using a IV chord rather than a VI on that note, and that the VI would be the expected one.

And while my ears are not as sharp as his were, I have heard at least one multi-person performance that harmonized on VI rather than IV. I'm pretty sure that was one of the performances I complained to him about. But I don't remember who it was; I was just listening to version of "Wellerman" on YouTube. And finding that almost all of them had the timing wrong. That was what I noticed; it was John who noticed the different harmonization.