Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back

Subject: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: GUEST,Guest : Sean Breadin.
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 04:32 PM

Had this stuck in my head most of this afternoon. Can't remember a time when I didn't know it, no doubt due to many happily drunken singarounds down the decades. But what's the ultimate source? Does it have a Roud number? Is it in anyway traditional? Is there a known author?

Thanks!

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 04:59 PM

Dear Sean Breadin,

Welcome to Mudcat.

Could you give two lines that are "stuck in your head"?

Where
When
Who

are also helpful ...

Ask, and you shall receive ... sometimes ... within minutes.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

What led you to ask ... in one of the truly miraculous creations in the universe?

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: GUEST,Sean Breadin
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 05:20 PM

It's the chorus that lingers:

Paddy lay back, (Paddy lay back)
Take in your slack (take in your slack)
Take a turn around the capstan heave and hawl (?)
About ship station, boys, be handy (be handy!)
For we're bound for Valparaiso ‘round the horn

Where? North east / west UK singarounds
When? 1975-2012.
Who? A lot of much missed & dearly departed old friends.

What led me to ask? Because you holler along in good drunken faith without giving too much thought to provenance then decades later it pops into your brain (one of the truly miraculous creations in the universe?) out of nowhere and it gets you thinking.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 05:24 PM

Very traditional, though modern versions all descend from the one in Stan Hugill's "Shanties from the Seven Seas" (1960).

Roud 653. First collected in the 1920s, but probably thirty or forty years older.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Reinhard
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 05:25 PM

Just google for "paddy lay back site:mudcat.org" and you'll find
- the Digital Tradition entry for Paddy Lay Back (Roud 653)
- the discussion Lyr Req: Valparaiso which is mostly about other Valparaiso songs but mentions Paddy Lay Back too.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: GUEST,Guest : Sean Breadin.
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 05:40 PM

Thanks all!

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 05:57 PM

I actually show an earliest date of 1898. Not sure where I got that -- probably from Doerflinger, since that's the book that caused me to enter the song, and I indexed it before I started explaining where dates came from. Bone dated it to 1900.

I'm pretty sure I first heard it sung by the Irish Rovers, on some record belonging to my parents.

The current Ballad Index entry looks like this:

Paddy, Get Back
DESCRIPTION: Shanty, with long chorus, "Paddy, get back, Take in the slack, Heave away your capstan," etc. The song details how the poor boy has to go to sea to earn money, then suffers at the hands of weather, mate, and a long voyage
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1898
KEYWORDS: shanty poverty sailor abuse
FOUND IN: US(MA) Canada(Mar) Britain(England(Lond)) Ireland
REFERENCES (10 citations):
Doerflinger-SongsOfTheSailorAndLumberman, pp. 54-55, "Paddy, Get Back" (1 text, 1 tune)
Colcord-SongsOfAmericanSailormen, pp. 121-122, "Paddy Get Back" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hugill-ShantiesFromTheSevenSeas, pp. 321-327, "Paddy Lay Back" (3 texts, 3 tunes with variants) [AbEd, pp. 241-244]
Hugill-SongsOfTheSea, p. 32, "Pady Lay Back" (1 text, 1 tune)
Shay-AmericanSeaSongsAndChanteys, pp. 68-70, "Paddy Get Back" (1 text, 1 tune)
Kinsey-SongsOfTheSea, pp. 73-74, "Valparaiso Round the Horn" (1 text, 1 tune)
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, p. 124, "'Bout ship's stations, boys, be handy" (1 fragment)
Smith/Hatt/Fowke-SeaSongsBalladFromNineteenthCenturyNovaScotia, pp. 42-43, "Lay Out, Tack Sheets and Haul" (1 text)
Palmer-OxfordBookOfSeaSongs 141, "On Board the Leicester Castle" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, PADLAYBK
Roud #653
RECORDINGS:
George Ling, "On Board the Leicester Castle" (on Voice02)
Richard Maitland, "Paddy, Get Back" (AFS, 1939; on LC26)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Liverpool Song" (form, lyrics)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Mainsail Haul
The Liverpool Song
Valparaiso Round the Horn
File: Doe054

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: GUEST,Sean Breadin
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 06:11 PM

Cheers, Robert.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Reinhard
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 06:38 PM

I've just hacked a page together for Paddy Lay Back on Mainly Norfolk.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 06:48 PM

It was performed by Paul Clayton "and the Focs'le Singers" on Folkways FA 2429, "Foc'sle Songs and Shanties" (1959), possibly learned from Hugill's 1954 recording for the BBC.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: meself
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 08:07 PM

I learned it from an un-annotated 'mixed tape' with the last line in the chorus being, "Raise tacks and sheets and mains'l, haul!" - or something that sounded like that. Also, no "long voyage":

I quickly made my mind up I would jump her,
I'd leave the beggar and get a job ashore;
I swam across the bay, I went and I left her,
Walked into an English(?) bar and found a whore.

That's how I heard it, anyway.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 18 Aug 23 - 11:53 PM

I feel comfortable supposing that the article "On Shanties," in an August 1868 issue of _Once a Week_, refers to this song.

It reads,

//
There is an air of romance about California, the Brazils, and Mexico, that has a peculiar charm for Jack, and has made them the subject of many a favourite shanty, as _Rio Grande, Valparaiso, Round the Horn,_ and _Santa Anna._
//

I interpret that to be a list of *three* titles, the second of which is "Valparaiso, Round the Horn." (This is the same author who presumably meant ~"Oh Shenandoah" when they wrote "Oceanida." That is, title formatting is iffy.)

I have not done so, but would not be surprised if, with some tweaking of words and armchair searching, one could produce a candidate for a music hall-ish song borrowed by sailors. The searching would be improved with good knowledge of when jokey Irish-themed minstrel-ish comic songs, like "Paddy on the Railway," were first in vogue on the stage.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Aug 23 - 07:01 AM

Nice find, Gibb.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 19 Aug 23 - 01:32 PM

Gibb Sahib wrote,

I feel comfortable supposing that the article "On Shanties," in an August 1868 issue of _Once a Week_, refers to this song.

May I cite your research on this in the Ballad Index? I don't think it's quite firm enough to cite as a guaranteed date, but it's certainly worth noting!

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Aug 23 - 03:36 PM

The plain diction, developed plot, and straight-ahead style of the song strike me as very modern for the 1860s.

Not very minstrel-like.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 19 Aug 23 - 05:31 PM

Lighter,

When I say minstrel-ish, to be clear (and maybe my term is poor, or misused), I am broadly evoking stage caricature and comic popular song with a penchant for playing on ethnic/national stereotypes—rather than only songs that reference African American ethnicity.

Stuff like THIS, published 1854 , in which I could see "Paddy Lay Back" fitting. Or THIS , where "Paddy on the Railway" is indicated as being set to "King of the Cannibal Islands."

I'm recalling one of the discussions circa 1915 when Richard Runciman Terry presented on shanties to colleagues and one remarked that he remembered "Paddy on the Railway" being a "Christy's Minstrels" item.

My basic, not expert, understanding from some of the scholarship on blackface minstrelsy is that even in the early period, minstrels did plenty of send-ups of Italian (opera) music, i.e. not only "Ethiopian delineation." A few decades later, I observe collections to include a wider range with "sauerkraut"/German caricatures, "Paddy"/Irish caricatures, and even some Chinese pidgin... the minstrel model developing into vaudeville.

I'd welcome a better characterization. I'm simply making a distinction between sailor song that strikes me as material derived more from popular theater performance as opposed to those items (including much of the "core" chanty repertoire) that sound more "folky" (disseminated among peers in off-stage contexts).

Robert,

Sure! It's a familiar source in these discussions, but flies under the radar a bit due to the uncommon title. A few subsequent publications, which I can only imagine are derivative of the _Once a Week_ piece, parse "Valparaiso" and "Round the Horn" as two separate items.

***
If the 1868 source does indeed refer to our song, it may be notable that we don't (yet) have more documentation until decades later. In the narrow context of "chanties" and their performance context, it's a hard song to sing. Dick Maitland's performance for Doerflinger shows how hard it might have been to keep in one's repertoire (due to its long narrative and more sophisticated rhyme-scheme) unless the singer really made it a point to practice it and keep it fresh.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 19 Aug 23 - 06:06 PM

A note in the JM Carpenter collection materials says, 'Mr Stevenson heard 70s-80s'.

Evidently, this was written in the margins of a text transcription of Benjamin Bright's performance in 1929.

https://www.dhi.ac.uk/carpenter/ginit.jsp?src=box1pac1.xml&id=p00427.0

I don't find a digitized file of that manuscript in the VWML. Perhaps they haven't gotten to it yet?

I suppose "Mr. Stevenson" was another of Carpenter's sailor interviewees, James Stevenson.

My sketchy and old notes have that Carpenter also collected the song from James Dwyer, William Rennie (at sea 1880-1895?), and John Vass.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 19 Aug 23 - 06:20 PM

Gibb Sahib write:

Sure! It's a familiar source in these discussions, but flies under the radar a bit due to the uncommon title. A few subsequent publications, which I can only imagine are derivative of the _Once a Week_ piece, parse "Valparaiso" and "Round the Horn" as two separate items.

Understandable, given the syntax. But your argument that it's one song makes sense. As I say, it's worth a mention. Thank you!

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 19 Aug 23 - 07:14 PM

A further thank you to Gibb Sahib. Checking that article on Google Books led me to cite it for seven different songs and mention it in connection with several more. In four cases, it was the earliest mention of the song. That's a lot of mileage for a two page item. :-)

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: GUEST,Sean Breadin
Date: 22 Aug 23 - 06:14 PM

Lovely! Thanks all for some fascinating insights.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Aug 23 - 08:21 PM

Hugill recorded the song for the BBC on May 15, 1954.

Regrettably the recording is not online.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 23 Aug 23 - 03:43 AM

I remember[ 1970s] a couple of people doubting the authenticity of this song. I am not saying they were correct, but is their proof of its authenticity.other than Hugill?

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 23 Aug 23 - 03:59 AM

RJM wrote: I remember[ 1970s] a couple of people doubting the authenticity of this song. I am not saying they were correct, but is their proof of its authenticity.other than Hugill?

Doerflinger. Bone. Colcord. Hugill. Even if you ignore the 1868 reference, this is extremely strong attestation.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Aug 23 - 04:43 AM

Royston Clifford sang the song in 1907 (recorded by Percy Grainger, London). Clifford is described as an "old salt" in material about Grainger's activities, but I don't know his biography.

https://sounds.bl.uk/sounds/bout-ship-1001180075860x000006

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Aug 23 - 03:47 PM

Clifford (July 10, 1908):

                     
    It was about last November,
    And all my money I had spent.
    And as quite usual for a sailor.
    A-down to the shipping office I went.

       Cho.:

       Oh, Johnny, come back.
       Heave in the slack.
       Heave away our capstan, heave a pawl, heave a paw-aw-aw-awl!
       ‘Bout ship’s stations, boys, be handy.
       Raise tacks, sheets, and mains’l haul!

    Now in my bag I had a bottle,
    For to [?knot the days with sleep].
    I went to wet my bleedin’ throttle,
    When once the skipper I did see.

       Cho.

Line 2, stanza 2, is hard to decipher.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: meself
Date: 23 Aug 23 - 03:54 PM

pawl
noun
'p?l
: a pivoted tongue or sliding bolt on one part of a machine that is adapted to fall into notches or interdental spaces on another part so as to permit motion in only one direction

- Mirriam-Webster


Can anyone explain "heave a pawl" - in under a thousand words?

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Aug 23 - 06:50 PM

meself,

A capstan has several small pawls at its base, around its circumference, to prevent it from revolving backwards. As the sailors heave (push) the capstan around in the forward direction, the pawls are continuously lifted out of their notches and then fall back into the next notch that comes around. The constant "ping ping" sound of iron against iron in this video is the sound of the pawls falling into the notches.

A brake windlass has one great pawl. It's the big rectangular piece of iron that is falling into the notches at the start of this video. .

"Heave a pawl" literally means to heave (push) the device so a pawl's-worth increment of rotation occurs. Of course, in practice you'll be rotating the device much more than one pawl's worth, so the phrase is more figurative in the songs and more just like "Heave!"(with the possible implication that the anchor's stuck, work has slowed to a crawl, and you've got to put an enormous effort just to gain an additional pawl's worth of progress).

"Heave AND pawl" is something different: An order, at the completion of the capstan maneuver, to push the capstan forward just enough to be sure all the pawls have fallen into their notches (and thus secured) rather than in halfway-up position. Otherwise, the capstan might lurch backwards if you suddenly ceased all pressure in the forward direction.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Aug 23 - 06:59 PM

Oops, sorry, Lighter, for the wrong date on Clifford recording! Thanks for correction.

Robert,

Maybe this source was the rationale for the c.1898-1900 date you mentioned earlier?

Carlton Dawe, _The Voyage of the "Pulo Way"_, 1899. Page 83.

https://books.google.com/books?id=BSpHAQAAMAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Aug 23 - 07:45 PM

An additional stab at the transcription!

Twas in the cold month of November,
When all my money I had spent.
It is quite usual for a sailor.
So back to the shipping office I went.

       Oh, Johnny, come back.
       Heave in the slack.
       Heave away your capstan, heave a pawl, heave a paw-aw-aw-awl!
       ‘Bout ship, staysails, [then?] be handy.
       Raise tacks, sheets, and mains’l haul!

Now in my bag I had a bottle,
The boarding master gave [it?] me.
Twas when to wet my bleedin’ throttle,
When was the skipper I did see.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 23 Aug 23 - 07:46 PM

Gibb Sahib wrote:

Robert,

Maybe this source was the rationale for the c.1898-1900 date you mentioned earlier?

Carlton Dawe, _The Voyage of the "Pulo Way"_, 1899. Page 83.

I wish I knew. I would have had the date at second-hand, with Doerflinger being my best guess for the source because that's the book that caused me to put the song in the Ballad Index -- but there is no way to reconstruct after twenty-odd years; Doerflinger was among the very first books I indexed. (The "foundation documents" of the Ballad Index, so to speak, were Child, Laws, Randolph, Eddy, and Doerflinger, plus Lomax's Folk Songs of North America, because those were the high-quality collections I had at the time. Maybe one or two others that I don't recall off the top of my head. But those were the early books.)

The other side is, that's a quality citation, so I'm going to put it into the Ballad Index either way. :-) Thank you again.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: meself
Date: 23 Aug 23 - 07:53 PM

Thank you, Gibb; I get the idea now!

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Aug 23 - 08:33 PM

William B. Sturtevant, in "The American Neptune" (1941), referring to 1886:

1. 'Twas in London in the cold month of December,
    That I found that all my money it was spent.
    How I got there I just don't remember,
    But I down to the shipping office went.
    On that day there was a great demand for sailors,
    For India, China, Java, and for France,
    So I shipped before the mast on the Oxford,
    And we went away to booze all our advance.

                   Chorus.
      
    Then it's get back, give in the slack,
    Bear away your capstan, heave a paul. [sic]
    'Bout ship staysails boys be handy,
    Then it's raise tacks, sheets and mainsail haul.

2. We all came on board on a Sunday morning,
    And everyone was heavy on the booze.
    So I sat down on my chest aquietly [sic] thinking,
    Whether I'd turn in my bunk and have a snooze,
    When I heard a voice loudly calling,
    I listened and I heard that voice again.
    It was the chief mate at the forecastle door a-howling!
    Come lay aft boys and answer to your names.

                   Chorus: etc.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 23 Aug 23 - 09:10 PM

So when and where did the actual “Paddy lay back...” bit first make its appearance?

“Although really outward bound from Rio, as far as the crew is concerned the “Guarneri” is homeward bound for most of them hail from North Sea ports.

One may be sure that they put real sentiment into the ancient Chanty:

                "PADDY LAY BACK"

It was on a cold and wintry morning in December
That I walked along the streets of Dublin Town,
Where my money had all gone I couldn't remember
An' I hadn't got a friend in all the town
So I signed up on a brig called the “Oxford.”
Bound for Chile an' Peru,
They were a jolly bunch I well remember––
The skipper, mates, the cook an' all the crew.
                Chorus:
“Oh, Paddy, lay back,
Pull in your slack,
All hands round the capstan,
Heave up all!
'Tis a cold and wintry morning in December
An' we're bound for the West Coast––
Round the Horn.”

        The Chantyman's job is an important one and he is generally a big-chested, leather-lunged and weather-tanned descendent of the long dead tribe of King's Jesters for the Chantyman must be able to improvise at a moment's notice proper stanzas in accordance with passing events aboard the ship. He is of a humorous turn of mind, and by a witty stanza or two manages to keep the crew in a happy frame of mind even at the most discouraging moments.”
[D'Oliveira, L.V. LeCocq, White Wings, Brazilian American, vol.12, no.295, 20 June 1925]

Also:
On the Banks of the Sacramento
Blow the Man Down
Robin Ranso
Yarra River
Bound for Baltimore

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 24 Aug 23 - 12:03 AM

Some or other Mr. Vass (John? The first names appear to be rather confounded in the records) sang "Paddy" for J.M. Carpenter, 1931, I think.

Recording

Perhaps significantly, we now have at least three versions that mention "The Oxford." Just prior to the text Lighter quoted, the writer refers to the song as "The Oxford" (sung in leisure time).

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Aug 23 - 07:43 AM

Four versions.

Thomas Ginovan, Bristol, for Carpenter ca1928:

                        MAINS'L HAUL

Once within the middle of December,
Hard up for booze and money spent;
Where it went to I do not remember,
So down to the shipping office went.
There was a great demand for sailors,
For New York, China, and Japan,
I shipped on board the Oxford,
And I went upon the spree with my advance.

          Oh, Paddy, Get Back,
          Take in the slack!
          Heave away the capstan, heave a pawl!
          Heave a pawl!
          Bout ship [sic] station, boys, be handy!
          Rise [sic] tacks sheets and mains'l haul.

Now next day I stowed my things aboard her,
My head piece was sore from too much booze.
So I sat upon me chest a quietly thinking,
To turn in my bunk and have a snooze.
But it seemed that I heard a voice a shouting,
I listened till I heard the voice again.
'Twas the chief mate upon the poop a shouting,
"All aft, boys, and answer to your name!"

Now when I arrived upon the quarterdeck,
Such a sight, boys, I never saw before.
There were men there who came from every nation,
Which made my poor heart feel sick and sore.
I wished meself back at the Jolly Sailors,
Drinking whiskey punch along with Irish Kate,
I thought what fools were we poor sailors,
We always find it out when it's too late.

In my chest I knew there was a bottle,
Because I saw the boarding master put it there;
So I thought it best to go and wet my throttle,
I [sic] see if I could drive away dull care.
So down on my knees as quick as thunder,
Groping like a pig all in a trough,
Oh shipmates you cannot guess my wonder,
When I found it was a bottle for my cough.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 24 Aug 23 - 11:20 PM

Nice. Too bad "Oxford" is such a wild card in database searching, otherwise one might find "the ballad of the Oxford" or some such thing.

Indeed, "Oxford" breaks the ideal rhyme scheme, so to retain it, rather than to substitute something else to make rhyme, could suggest it is essential to include.

In which case the germ of the idea of the song might revolve less around the pathetic character of a "Paddy" and the unfortunate-yet-typical situations he gets in, in general, and more around the tale of a particular ship.

I wonder if Hugill's "[Limey barque the] Hotspur" isn't also a mishearing of "Oxford."

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Aug 23 - 12:26 AM

Snippets, from Sea Breezes magazine, 1954

//
[pg226] [March 1954, queries section, "Slop Chest"]
WORDS WANTED
I am trying to find the words of a sea chanty, the chorus of which goes:-
“When Paddy comes back, heave in the slack,
Heave around the capstan, heave a-pall, heave a-pall,
‘Bout ship, stations lads, be handy,
rise tacks sheets and mainsail haul.”
Can any reader help?
W. R. Auld

[pg263]
…the local talent among us. There were mouth organ and mandolin recitals. Somehow chanties were taboo. Partly because they were considered “shop” and usually when a crowd got singing “Amsterdam” no holds were barred…

[pg 306]
CHANTY COLLECTOR
I am a collector of sea chanties…

pg 314
NOT A WORKING CHANTY
I am glad to be able to answer the query of Mr. W. R. Auld…

…for the words of the song—it was not a working chanty—of which he gave the chorus. The first verse and chorus ran:

It was a cold and frosty morning in December
When my money was all spent.
Where it had gone I didn’t remember
As to the shipping office I went.
That day there was a great demand for sailors
For Melbourne and for ‘Frisco and for France
And I shipped aboard of the “Harold”
And went to town to cash my month’s advance

Chorus: She’s all aback, heave in the slack…
//

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Aug 23 - 02:51 AM

Albert Sonnichsen, _Deep Sea Vagabonds_ (New York, 1903)

Sonnichsen, a San Francisco native, goes to sea in 1896.

In his voyages, he refers to / quotes some items he labels as "old chanty": RIO GRANDE, BANKS OF SACRAMENTO, and ROLLING HOME.

He appears to distinguish "song" and "chanty," because he writes (p125) "There was much work to be done yet in making the ship fast both fore and aft, but gaily we did it, roaring out songs and chanties as we skipped about the windlass."

In April 1897, he is in a British ship headed up the English Channel. Here, he quotes PADDY LAY BACK and calls it a "song." The crew is suffering a bit having to tack so much and their arms freezing with icy water. Pg. 171:

//
We tried hard to take it philosophically, and even sang while we pulled and hauled at the braces the old song, the chorus to which is:

“Oh carry me back,
Heave in the slack,
Take her to the capstan,
Heave a pawl, heave a pawl.
Bout ship, station lads,
be handy
Up tacks, sheets and mainsail haul.”
//

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 25 Aug 23 - 09:24 AM

Gibb, is it true that Ginovan's and Hugill's are the only known full versions?

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 25 Aug 23 - 01:51 PM

Ligher wrote: Gibb, is it true that Ginovan's and Hugill's are the only known full versions?

Not sure what you mean by a "full" version, but Doerflinger's (from Maitland) is quite long -- 13 stanzas plus a variant final stanza.

Colcord's is shorter -- 5 stanzas -- but I'd still call it a substantial version. I'm too lazy to check every version I have indexed, but there are clearly a number of substantial versions; they aren't all fragments.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Aug 23 - 06:19 PM

Lighter--
I don't know. I'm just along for the ride!

It turns out that for me, the usefulness of all these fragments and snippets is to get better ideas on how to search for documentation of this song (and discover other things in the process). I also appreciate the greater clarity on where the song fell in relation to work applications and/or being considered as a "chanty."

I forget now where I saw it (!), but one writer said (their interpretation) that the song was about a *Briton* joining a ship of mixed nationalities, and we've now seen that versions with "Paddy" do not necessarily predominate. That compels me to revise my earlier musing in this thread about possibly finding this song among a repertoire of Irish caricature ("Paddy") songs. Which is a good thing.

***

Here's another snippet:

_Yachting_ vol. 55 (1934), pg. 33:

//
Suddenly I paused and listened intently ; the words of a strange song reached my ears like an echo of a by-gone day:

"Arrah!—get back! Take in the slack!
Bear away the capstan, heave a pawl;
'Bout ship! Stations! Boys, be handy.
Raise tacks, sheets; and mains’l haul!”
//

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Anglo
Date: 30 Aug 23 - 05:32 PM

Gibb mentioned, above, the version given by Benjamin Bright, from 1929 in the Carpenter collection. Could this be the same Ben Bright that Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger collected a few decades later? Unfortunately my library is currently in disarray, and I can't put my hand on Ewan's monograph.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Aug 23 - 05:52 PM

"The People and the Collectivist" (Sydney) (June 9, 1900):

"While the tug conveyed us down the river to where the vessel lay at anchor the chortling idiots who accompanied me kept me awake by singing:

    Get back,
    Take in your slack,
    Heave away the capstan,
    Heave apaul   [sic]
    Bout ship!
    [S]tations, boys, be handy,
    Lay home tacks,
    Sheets and mainsail haul."

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Aug 23 - 07:04 PM

Los Angeles Express (Jan. 26, 1919):

"I was in London in the cold month of December,
And all of my wages I had spent.
Oh how it went today I can't remember,
But I down unto a shipping office went.
In those days there was a great demand for sailors,
From London around Cape Horn and back to France,
So I shipped me aboard a bark called the Oxford,
Oh, here's to take a drink to my advance.

                      CHORUS.

Paddy go whack, take in the slack, and heave away the capstan,
   Heave a pull, heave a pull.
For we're bound, ship staysails, boys be handy,
   We're bound to Valparaiso round Cape Horn."

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 31 Aug 23 - 01:17 AM

The text from Bone, _Capstan Bars_ (1931), for reference. He classes it among "fo'cas'le ditties." As Robert mentioned above, Bone notes that it was "popular in 1900" and "I have not heard it since then."

THE LIVERPOOL SONG

‘Twas in th’ cold month of December,
When all my money I had spent,
I shipped in the Clipper ship ‘Defender,’
An’ away to the west-ard I went.

CHORUS
An’ it is ‘Get ye back.’ Ho!
‘Take in y’er slack.’ Ho!
Heave away th’ capstan. Heave a pawl.
Heave a pawl!
‘Bout ship: stations, boys, be handy.
Raise tacks, sheets, an’ mains’l haul!

I joined on a bitter winter’s morning.
A-frappin’ my arms to keep warm.
An’ th’ south cone a-hoisted for a warnin’
To stand by th’ makin’ of a storm.

It was then that I heard a voice a-callin’.
I listened and I heard it again.
‘Twas th’ mate at th’ fo’cas’le door a-bawlin’.
‘Oh, lay aft an’ answer t’ y’er name.’

An’ when I arrived upon th’ quarter-deck,
Great Heavens, what a sight was there to see:
There were remnants of nearly every nation.
An’ I tell you th’ sight did sicken me.

There was Dutchmen an’ Roosians an’ Spanish,
An’ Johnny Creepaws straight across from France,
An’ most didn’t know a word of English,
But answered to the name o’ ‘Month’s Advance.’

Now in my chest I had a bottle.
I saw my boarding master put it there.
So I slipped off th’ deck t’ wet my throttle,
To drown off my sorrow an’ my care.


NB: The melody of the first two lines of the chorus is significantly different than Hugill's familiar melody version.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: meself
Date: 31 Aug 23 - 01:33 AM

"Johnny Creepaws"?

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 31 Aug 23 - 02:12 AM

Johnny Crapaud-s

Crapaud - French for "frog"

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 31 Aug 23 - 09:50 AM

Thanks for posting, Gibb.

Technically, "crapaud" means "toad" in English, but it was a common seafaring term for the French, often as "Johnny Crapaud."

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 31 Aug 23 - 10:17 AM

> "toad" in English

.... "Borrowed from French", quoth Wictionary. My hardcopy Collins's* agrees, and adds "(Caribbean)", which suggests a migration route for the word as a pejorative.

* That's not definitively helpful, as it's the first edition of the computer-sorted version, complete with the interesting errors (eg confusing Sardinia with Sardos as the origin of "sardonic").

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 31 Aug 23 - 10:46 AM

I'm persuading myself that the 1868 reference to "Valparaiso, Round the Horn" isn't to this song but to the one commonly called "Rounding the Horn" or "The Girls Around Cape Horn" - about the ship "California," the frigate "Amphitrite," the ship "Conway," etc. (Roud 4706).

The style and diction of "Paddy Lay Back" is just too post-romantic for me. There are no "poetic" cliches, no sentimentality, no "brave boys," etc.: circumstantial, plain-spoken, first-person realism only.

It's the fresh first-person realism, undiluted, that impresses me: the narrator is an individual, not a conventional figure or a "we." He insists that he did and saw these many, very specific things personally and makes no attempt to generalize, moralize, or aestheticize them. The style just doesn't strike me as typical of the 1860s or earlier.

Unless new evidence shows up, I'd date "Paddy" to ca1885 or later.

Tentatively.