Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)

Subject: shoals of herring
From: GUEST,ta2
Date: 11 Dec 02 - 02:15 PM

This excellent song sounds traditional but i think it was written for a bbc radio programme in the 60's.....i used to play it but i've forgotten................who can give me lyrics and chords....................thank you and merry xmas,.....hannakha.........and Eid to you all !

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: curmudgeon
Date: 11 Dec 02 - 02:21 PM

Its in the DT. Written by Ewan MacColl for the radio program, Singing the Fishing; musical biography of Sam Larner -- Tom

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: boglion
Date: 11 Dec 02 - 02:59 PM

Ewan MacColl certainly wrote it but only in snatches for different radio shows. I saw Louis Killen many years ago and he claimed to have put it together as a song. He even laughed about Ewan being asked to sing it and not being able to.

The version on the Database is different from the Dubliners (Luke Kelly) version I am familiar with. I'm sure there was a verse which mentions "scraps of Navigation". Also the final verse is missing. It's sung to the same slower air as the first verse and goes something like: "Night and Day the seas we're faring
                Come winter winds or winter gales
                Sweating or cold - gowing up, growing old or dying
                As we hunt the Bonny Shoals of Herring"

Terry

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Dec 02 - 03:04 PM

I think,
...growing old and tired.

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: Rapparee
Date: 11 Dec 02 - 03:30 PM

In the stormy seas and the living gale
Sure I earned the gear that I was wearin'
That's your education
Scraps of navigation
As you hunted for the shoals of herring.

At least as I remember it.

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: nutty
Date: 11 Dec 02 - 04:19 PM

The version that is in the DT is the version printed in THE ESSENTIAL EWAN McCOLL SONGBOOK .......
Peggy Seeger notes that the song is also now known as 'The Shores of Erin'

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 11 Dec 02 - 07:25 PM

Terry, it doesn't sound very likely to me that MacColl wrote the song 'in snatches for different radio shows', as he only made the one on the topic of fishing. MacColl's memories of how this song came into being are clearly somewhat different from Killen's:

[1990:] When I finished writing [this], we sang it to Sam Larner on our next trip up. He was delighted that I knew it for, as he declared, 'I known that song all my life'. [...] A song about fishermen must please fishermen, a song about miners must be convincing to miners, or there is something wrong with it. (MacColl, Journeyman 323)
For The Shoals of Herring I tried out and rejected more than a score of tune models and, in the course of a fortnight, sang hundreds of first-line variants before I found one that pleased me. After that, it was a matter of seeing whether the rest of the tune soared naturally out of that first line or whether it had to be coaxed into the open. (MacColl, Journeyman 365)

Maybe Lou was having people on?

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: banjomad (inactive)
Date: 12 Dec 02 - 05:16 AM

Ewan wrote 'Shoals Of Herring ' for the radio ballad 'Singing the Fishing'
Charles Parker and Ewan had analysed Sam Larners speech patterns and this was used by Ewan to write the song, Sam Larner thought he had known it all his life because he was listening to his own speech patterns and rythms.
It is still a great song.
Dave

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 12 Dec 02 - 05:28 AM

It is definitely all in "Singing the Fishing" - and I don't think any of it was sung or published earlier. As in many of the radio ballad songs, this one is split up by bit's of dialogue. There are several variations to some of the lyrics, but I think these come from other singers. The main one is:

Now you're up on deck, you're a fisherman
And you're learning all about seafaring
For your education scraps of navigation

instead of MacColl's original:

Now you're up on deck, you're a fisherman
You can swear and show a manly bearing
Take your turn on watch with the other fellows

The song also has a sort of prologue and epilogue in the radio ballad:

With our nets and gear we're faring
On the wild and wasteful ocean.
It's there on the deep that that we earn our bread
(Or DT version: Its there that we hunt and we earn our bread)
As we hunt the bonny shoals of herring

Night and Day we're daring
Come summer's storm or winter's galing
We're sweating and cold, growing up, growing old, and dying
As we hunt the bonny shoals of herring.


I was interested in Peggy's comment that the song is also now known as 'The Shores of Erin'. As I've mentioned in another thread I was plagued at one club by an old guy who kept asking me to "Sing that song about sailing round the Irish coast". I repeatedly told him that I knew no such song, but he insisted that he'd heard me sing it. When I did sing "Shoals of Herring" he suddenly said "That's the song - The Shores of Erin". All these years I thought it was due to poor diction on my part !

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: Paddy Plastique
Date: 12 Dec 02 - 06:03 AM

Yer diction... LOL

You must stop droppin' dem aitches

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: Schantieman
Date: 12 Dec 02 - 06:17 AM

I learned the preamble as:

With our nets and gear we're faring
On the wide and wasteful ocean
It's there on the deep that we harvest and we reap our bread
As we hunt the bonny shoals of herring.

(Obviously it needs a rather different tune, esp. in the long third line, and the one I sing has a rather high twiddly bit - v. diff. - in the second line).

Have I got this all arsy-versy or has anyone else heard of it like this?

Steve

Subject: Lyr Add: SHOALS OF HERRING (Ewan MacColl)
From: Teribus
Date: 12 Dec 02 - 06:39 AM

Version I know and have sung for ages:

SHOALS OF HERRING - Ewan MacColl)

With our nets and gear we're faring
On the wild and wasteful ocean.
It's out there on the deep that that we harvest and reap our bread
As we hunt the bonny shoals of herring

Well it was a fine and a pleasant day
Out of Yarmouth Harbour I was farin'
As a cabin Boy on a sailin' Lugger
We were off to hunt the shoals of herring

Now the work was hard and hours were long
And the treatment surely took some bearin'
There was little kindness and the kicks were many
As we hunted for the shoals of herring

Well we fished the Swarte and the Broken Bank
I was Cook and I'd a quarter sharing
And I used to sleep standin' on me feet
And I'd dream about the shoals of herring

Well we left home grounds in the month of June
And to canny Shields we soon were bearin'
Wi' a hundred cran o' the Silver darlin's
That we'd taken from the shoals of herring

You're a grown man now, boy you're on the blue
And you're learnin' all about seafarin'
Aye your education's scraps o' navigation
As you hunt the bonnie shoals of herring

Now you're up on deck you're a fisherman
You can swear and show a manly bearin'
Take your turn on watch wi' the other fellows
As you hunt the bonnie shoals of herring

Well I earned me keep and I paid me way
And I earned the gear that I was wearin'
Sailed a million miles caught ten million fishes
As I followed after shoals of herring

Through the stormy seas and the livin' gales
Just to earn your daily bread you're farin'
From the Dover Straits to the Faroe Islands
As you hunt the bonnie shoals of herring

Night and Day we're faring
Come winter calm or winter gale
Sweating or cold, growing up, growing old, and dying
As we hunt the bonny shoals of herring.

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: Schantieman
Date: 12 Dec 02 - 07:16 AM

Brill Teribus!

Ta 10^6

Yours aye

Steve

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: ard mhacha
Date: 12 Dec 02 - 09:34 AM

Teribus,that is the version I know it`s a great song, had a listen again to Liam Clancy`s rendition, never been bettered. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: curmudgeon
Date: 12 Dec 02 - 09:56 AM

As with many of MacColl's songs, it is often difficult to gett all the words from only one recording. I have recordings of him singing it on The New Briton Gazette, Freeborn Man, with Alf Edwards on The Art of the English Concertina, and Singing the Fishing. Bert LLoyd also does a fine rendition on the 4 volume set, The Electric Muse. I don't know where this recording of the song came from, but it is interspersed with commentaries by Larner.

I've heard Lou Killen sing this on several occssions, even sung it with him at a session, and he has never claimed, in any possible way, credit for this song, but always acknowledged MacColl as the composer.

Great work, Teribus. This is the most complete set of the lyrics I've yet seen in print.. However, some corrections and alternatives:

Verse 3 and the treatrment, sure, it took some bearin'
Verse 5 Shields, usually pron. as Sheels
Verse 6, the most elusive of all I have as:

You're net ropeman now, boy, you're on the move,
And you're learnin' all about seafarin'
Scraps of navigation, thats your education
As you're following the shoals of herrin'

I also use the "ten millioion fishes " verse as the end, rather than the "stormy seas."

A final comment; I don;t remember when or where I read it, many years ago, but supposedly a field collector in Ireland had the tune from a travveler whistle player who declared it to be a slow air, "The Shores of Erin." This happened about two months after Singing the Fishing was first aired.

Its still one of the world's finest composed "folk songs" -- Tom

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Dec 02 - 10:17 AM

I must have mis remembered tired for dying.
I have a 1970 LP of EMC and Peggy Seeger. He sings it without verse 6 (I have never heard that one) and without the epilogue. He finishes with the Sailed a million miles   verse sung in slow time.

Asleep, standing on my feet,
Keith.

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 12 Dec 02 - 10:23 AM

I can never get lyrics right when I'm not singing them - and If I broke into song here in the office I don't think I would be very popular. Upon reflection, I agree with Schantieman, the prologue I actually sing is:

It's there on the deep that we harvest and we reap our bread

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: curmudgeon
Date: 12 Dec 02 - 10:27 AM

That is the Freeborn Man album. I think I got that elusive verse 6 from the Lloyd rendition, but as the turntable is piled up with stuff, I can't check right now. But wherever I heard it, I snatched it right up and added it to the song; the poetry and sentiment fits tightly -- Tom

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: curmudgeon
Date: 12 Dec 02 - 10:29 AM

Singing while playing concertina is hard enough, but singing while typing is impossible -- Tom

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 12 Dec 02 - 11:22 AM

If anyone wants to hear this in context, the radio ballad "Singing the Fishing" is available as a CD. CAMSCO, of course, carries it.

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 12 Dec 02 - 12:29 PM

I remember the BBC made a tv version of "Singing the Fishing" in the early/mid 70s. They taleked about the problems of depleting the stocks by over fishing (even then!), and McColl added an extra epilogue verse. I can't remember it all, but it went soemthing like "If we continue to reap what we do not sow/There be no more shoals of herring". Any longer and better memories out there?

Steve

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: curmudgeon
Date: 12 Dec 02 - 12:50 PM

Steve - Do you know if the tv version is available? I would really like to have a look and a listen -- Tom

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 13 Dec 02 - 03:10 AM

I've absolutely no idea, Tom, sorry. You could try the Beeb direct, I supopose.

Steve

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: GUEST,Adolfo
Date: 13 Dec 02 - 07:24 AM

Greetings.
There's a vhs version of the song included in the BBC 'Bringing it all back home' documentary about Irish music influence on the USA. There it's the Clancy Brothers singing.
By the way, one of the brothers mentions the fact that the line 'wide and wasteful ocean' was taken from Shakespeare's Henry V.

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: greg stephens
Date: 13 Dec 02 - 08:38 AM

Henry V indeed, from the "Once more unto the breach dear friends once more" speech. It's amazingly difficult to use the English language without quoting from Shakesepeare or the King James(Authorised) Bible, whether consciously or unconsciously. In a recent TV show they ran down the top 100 best-selling singles since the charts began. I remember noticing that top ten final songs contained lyrics from both those sources.

Subject: RE: shoals of herring
From: GUEST,Ard Mhacha
Date: 13 Dec 02 - 01:48 PM

I remember Sarah Miles whilst filming in Ireland, describing the song in glowing terms,this was the Liam Clancy version she had been hearing and the beautiful slow lead in verse and the finish of the song in the same manner,her words, "had her spellbound". Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Barrie Roberts
Date: 12 Aug 04 - 10:32 PM

Like Steve Parkes, I saw the BBC tv documentary 'Shoals of Herring' in the mid1970s. In fact, I believe we watched it together. It was produced by McColl's pal Philip Donellan who died in Ireland a couple of years ago. After his death the national Film Theatre ran a season of his work, so they might have 'Shoals of Herring'.
There was, indeed, a new closing to the song written for that film, which I believe was:

With our nets and gear we're faring,
To reap a harvest that we do not sow,
But if we don't seed
There will come our hour of need,
When we shall find no more the shoals of herring.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Anne Croucher
Date: 12 Aug 04 - 10:59 PM

I sing 'fishing lugger'in the second verse - you can have a lugger that is not a fishing boat but you can't have a lugger than is not a sailing vessel - a lugs'l is a four cornered sail set fore and aft bent onto a yard slung off centre.

The term 'sailing lugger' is a tautology.

Anne

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 06:13 AM

But you could have a lugger with an auxilliary engine, Anne; maybe he meant one that didn't, but was entirely wind-powered?

And Barrie: yes we did! I don't think I've ever heard anyone else sing that last verse, but it's time we started.

Steve

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Greyeyes
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 06:56 AM

Not convinced "sailing lugger" is necessarily a tautology. A lugger tied up at the dock for instance would be a lugger that wasn't sailing. So it could mean he was cabin boy on a vessel about to set sail.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: IanC
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 07:07 AM

What's wrong with tautologies anyway?

They're often used in East Anglian speech to strengthen the meaning of what's being said. In a song, they can also provide emphasis.

:-)

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 08:44 AM

Absolutely correct, Ian!

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 08:45 AM

Great pity they don't use it at the fishing museum in Yarmouth and Peter bellamy's music. why are these places run by people who ...words don't fail me...butI've upset my quota of people for today.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 09:47 AM

They'd probably like to, but can't afford the royalties. Can anyone find out?

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Abby Sale
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 10:52 AM

Just to add a bit of trivia to this mythic song - MacColl not only studied Larner's speech (and his life history) in search of accuracy...he also did so with the rest of the song.

He pinned a huge map of the North Sea on his bedroom wall. As he wrote, he would run into the bedroom and consult the map. This ensured for him the place names and possible routes for the trips. Much of the progress of the song's subject is taken directly from Larner's life.

That "Shores of Erin" reference is slightly off. It was possibly a single incident, not that the song was generally or even widely known by that. It seems to spring from a comment, apparently by MacColl and both Palmer (Oxford Book of Sea Songs) and "freeborn man" LP, note it's been collected in Ireland as "The Shores of Erin." I've never seen any corrorboration of that until just now reading Dave Bryant's comment above. But I'd still really like to see a certain reference and text. Maybe it's just the whistle tune mentioned by curmudgeon.

Last, I believe this to be a great example of a true "folk song." Or "Neo-folk song." That is, one that is recent, transmitted in part electronically and of known authorship but... Passes in the community of folksingers oraly and rapidly and "processes" as it goes. It was recorded early on (and in significantly differing versions) by the likes of Killen, Kelly, Makem, the Corries and even MacColl. (MacColl because he kept changing it and in the Radio show, he is not the sole singer of the song.) It even enters the literature as early as 1965 by no less than Palmer.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 01:04 PM

A few years ago Peggy Seeger told me that once when she was the hairdressers the young woman attending to her was humming a tune. Recognising it, Peggy asked her, 'What's the name of that tune?'. She answered 'It's an old Irish song called 'The Shores of Erin'. Call it what you like it remains one of the best folk revival songs ever written. Burl.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 02:14 PM

There are naysayers who state that MacColl's "Shoals of Herring" spread so rapidly that it metamorphosed into "Shores of Erin;" to the point that some insist that their grandparents sang it (several singers websites).

There is an old song, "The Green Shores of Erin," by C. H. Duval, but the tune is different.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Tam
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 05:49 PM

Peggy at the hairdressers? There's a picture!

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Anne Croucher
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 06:13 PM

A lugger with an engine is still a sailing vessel with a lugs'l - you know what I ment.

I still think fishing lugger makes more sense.

Singing 'sailing lugger' is like saying 'car with wheels'.

I did hear that a month after Singing the Fishing was on the radio someone bought several rounds of porter in order to collect a really good song from some Irish chaps, only to find that he had been given 'shoals of herring' transmogrified into 'shores of Erin' for his trouble.

Anne

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Compton
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 09:14 PM

I used to sing this after hearing Bob Davenport sung it.(when both Bob and I were much younger!!..people used to say it was strange that I was varying key between each verse...than I heard a record with Bob that I got it off...and damn me, he sang it in all sorts of keys as well!!

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jim McLean
Date: 14 Aug 04 - 05:05 AM

Alex Campbell used to say you could tell which key Bob was singing in by the colour of his neck!

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: John Routledge
Date: 16 Aug 04 - 06:23 PM

Bob is performing at The Grove, Leeds, UK on 3rd Sept. I will ask him to sing it :0)

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Compton
Date: 16 Aug 04 - 06:44 PM

John, see how many key changes he makes!!

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Abby Sale
Date: 18 Aug 04 - 12:41 PM

As I recall, in the Radio Ballad, the first and last verses are separate from the rest (and the last verse is rarely if ever, sung by MacColl.)

One is sung by Lloyd & the other by MacColl but they are significantly different in key, tune & scansion from the rest of the song...They are a set but styled very differently by the two men. That would account for two key changes right there.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: John Routledge
Date: 18 Aug 04 - 01:27 PM

As a song to be sung direct to an audience the "Radio" version minus the first and last verses seems more satisfactory to me.

After all the audience is not listening to the radio :0)

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Compton
Date: 18 Aug 04 - 02:34 PM

Abby, it was almost EVERY verse!!

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Growlin' Graham Carter
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 10:59 AM

I studied this song recently after somebody suggested that it might be suitable for me to perform. In the end I went for authenticity and transcribed the lyric directly from a verson of Ewan singing it live. I don't believe that somebody from Yarmouth would use the word "Bonny". It's a wonderful song and I'm glad I learned it.....it will be a life long companion now.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 07 Dec 11 - 10:20 AM

"I don't believe that somebody from Yarmouth would use the word "Bonny". But wasn't Yarmouth annually teeming with Scots fishing girls at that time? Surely the local fisherfolk would pick up on words from the Scots and vice-versa? Bonny is not exactly an unknown word in England though I know it is used more in the north of England.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Dec 11 - 02:48 PM

I always leave out the first and last verse, i agree with the comments about east anglians using or not using bonny

Subject: RE: Origins: Shoals of Herring (MacColl)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Dec 11 - 03:00 PM

As Allan said, Yarmouth was full of Scots fish-gutters.
Also, Sam Larner, on whom much of the 'Shoals' text was based, regularly put into Scots ports while on a trip. He described taking part in a singing competition in Peterhead on one of these trips
There was much to-ing and fro-ing between the eastern ports; Sam's nephew's wife Ella was nicknamed 'Sunderland' because that was her home place, having moved down from there as a fish-gutter - "bonny" is a word still commonly used in her part of the world.
Jim Carroll