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12 Jan 00 - 05:29 PM (#161819) Subject: Row Bullies, Row From: Margo Flash! A sudden realization as I read the first line of a Robert Burns poem. The title is The Lea-Rig (the meadow ridge). The first line reads,"I'll rowe thee o'er the lea-rig" Rowe in Scots means roll. Now, I read, (can't remember where, maybe Doerflinger or Hugill) that the fellow that collected the song Row Bullies Row is said to have misunderstood the word roll, and wrote row. Now everyone knows that the ship pitches and rolls, but no sailors row. I wonder if the collector was Scottish? I wonder if I have an overactive imagination. You might think this a dumb thing to even ponder, but I always sing ROLL and not row when I sing the song. Whaddaya tink, fellow shanteymen? Margo |
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12 Jan 00 - 05:34 PM (#161822) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: MMario But sailors DID row, when in a longboat, warping the ship to or from dock or other anchorage, or when becalmed and desperate enough to tow; not to mention the fact that oared galleys were around for many hundreds of years. |
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12 Jan 00 - 05:49 PM (#161830) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: Margo So what do you think, MM? Do you think it's a song about one of those desparate times? There are references to the girls having a hold of the tow rope, meaning that the ship was clipping along at top speed. I always equated the Liverpool Judies having them in tow with the top speed, hence no rowing. Margo |
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12 Jan 00 - 07:58 PM (#161917) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: Dave (the ancient mariner) Probably right about Roll, we do Roll more than we Row But if the Liverpool Judies have got us in tow it would be from the shore and they may have been warping ship with Sweeps...large oars deployed as thrusters to move ship around a dock. or a hawser towed to shore by boat so the ship can be warped in by a capstan. both seem to fit so it's singers choice..Yours, (puzzled myself) Aye. Dave |
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12 Jan 00 - 08:40 PM (#161935) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: Barry Finn Those "Liverpool Judies", "having em in tow", while the ship has "a bone in it's mouth (or teeth)" meant to be rolling along at a good clip usually when one hits the trade winds. Row sometimes might also come down river to the deep or blue water sailor & the term row may stick for awhile but roll is a constant state in the trades until you start rocking & rolling. On a Pacfic crossing we probably rolled for 2000 miles while in the trades while another 1000 was spent trying to find catspaws (the cats out of the bag Spaw - puffs of wind in an otherwise windless sea) in the horse latitudes. See Rolling Down to Cuba, Rolling Down to Trinidad, Roller Bowler & all the many other Roll & Go songs & see the comparison the Rower songs. Theres also a song written by C. Fos Smith in 1920 called the "Tow Rope Girls" (see Port O' Dreams by Pint & Dale). Barry |
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12 Jan 00 - 09:20 PM (#161960) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: Max Another Mudcat radio coincidence! I just sang Liverpool Judies. Bert. |
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12 Jan 00 - 11:07 PM (#162021) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: DonMeixner I have always interpreted Liverpool Judies diferently and probably wrongly too. I have assumed that the Judies (Great womens band name?) were hookers. The cry to Row was a call to row and escape them evil women who were trying to trap the good and mostly pure sailor lads on shore and give them some kind of illness. Don |
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12 Jan 00 - 11:49 PM (#162031) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: Dave (the ancient mariner) Could be right there Don, but in my part of England a Judy was any Liverpool Girl, not usually used as a derogatory name either. Something like Sheila is used in Australia. Yours, Aye. Dave
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13 Jan 00 - 12:05 AM (#162037) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: DonMeixner Is a Judy a rhymning slang for anything? |
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13 Jan 00 - 06:14 AM (#162103) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: Boarding Party (KC) Two pence into the Judy pot. My sense is that when the Liverpudlians had you in tow, mysterious, homeward bounding forces were at work. Thus, when you were towing away from Liverpool and home, say to find one of Barry's cat's paws, the going would be a mite harder. If, on the other hand, you were head for home, things would go a bit easier. Short version, I think this a homeward bound mechanism - a seagoing version of the horse finding his way to the barn. In this case its wild oats and a roll in the hay. |
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13 Jan 00 - 06:18 AM (#162104) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: AndyG In Scouse, Judy equates to female. Hence Judy-cop <-> policewoman.
AndyG |
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13 Jan 00 - 06:31 AM (#162105) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: Roger the skiffler I have always interpreted it as meaning the call/pull of the home port and the ladies therein was an incentive to a fast home voyage, the metaphor being of the ship towed by the crew in longboats as in a calm or if disabled. If I remember from my days in the sea cadets "row" meant two oars per man and "pull" one oar per man (in the "Andrew", anyway, if not the Merchant Navy)- but then, I'm usually wrong! I've always heard it sung (Corries, Spinners etc) as "Row" and never as "Roll" RtS |
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13 Jan 00 - 07:12 AM (#162109) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: Dave (the ancient mariner) Course Lads, if'n they's all in a GIG rowing ashore from or to the anchorage, with the Cap'n in the stern sheets; now thats put another angle on yer bow ain't it? Running from husbands and Judy-Cops? or running to the Judies? as I said before mates, it's singers choice.(I know which I prefers) Oh them Liverpool Judie have got me in tow.... Yours, (with a wink) Aye. Dave |
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13 Jan 00 - 10:00 AM (#162152) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: Bert The way I heard it was that a Judy used to be a hooker but has now been accepted to mean any girl. And the phrase 'Liverpool Judies have got us in tow' was due to a piece of nautical folklore which held that the 'trade winds' were 'the whores of Liverpool pulling them home'. I don't think that the word 'row' has any more signifigcance than, it rhymes with 'Ho'. Same as in - "Ho! Ro! my Nut Brown Maiden" ? |
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13 Jan 00 - 12:47 PM (#162223) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: dick greenhaus It's been collected as Row Bullies Row, Roll Bullies Roll and Roll Julia Roll (and there may be others.) I first heard it as Liverpool Doxies. It probably doesn't pay to over-analyze. |
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13 Jan 00 - 01:11 PM (#162232) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: Margo Thanks, guys. I always like hearing all your points of view. Barry, I'm glad you mentioned the bone in her mouth, because I have that Pint/Dale CD and wondered about it. Since it's singer's choice, I choose "roll"! :o) Shanteygirl |
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13 Jan 00 - 04:26 PM (#162310) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: Jacob Bloom It seems to me that two things are getting confused: the time when the shantyman is singing, and the time that the shantyman is singing about. If Liverpool Judies would have been used as a shanty for rowing the longboat, then "row" makes sense, whether or not rowing has anything to do with anything else in the song. Can anybody say what kind of shanty this is, and what it would have been used for? Barry? As for the meaning of Judies - lots of sea songs seem to assume that the only women the sailors will meet will be prostitutes, so trying to figure out whether "Judies" meant women or prostitutes is probably a moot point. Jacob |
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13 Jan 00 - 07:37 PM (#162426) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: Barry Finn Hugill states that only he & Bone have it as a shanty (capstan) all the other collectors have it as a forebitter. He also says it my have been used as a rowing song by whalers, they must've had rowing songs, he says, but he knows of none that survived. The only rowing shanties (not songs but shanties) I've heard are from the southern coasts of the US & the the Island to it's south & the off the coasts of Scotland. Barry |
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08 Aug 01 - 07:31 PM (#523929) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: GUEST,seanlaffey Hugill, also says the song was originally Irish, and the variant tunes do follow an Irish pattern. There are more rowing sonmgs in Irish than there are shanty somngs in Gaelic. Brittany ahs a few rowing songs too ) Hoorah Les Filles" is one of my favourites. Prostitution in the days of the Liverpool Packets was a different prospect than the one shot for the dollar(s) of today. The Judy would "marry" the sailor for the duration of his shore leave, look after him, give him board and lodging until his "money was spent" and he had to "go to sea for more". Anyone got the pwrds to the Tow Rope Girls? Cheers Sean L
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09 Aug 01 - 03:37 AM (#524143) Subject: RE: Row Bullies, Row From: Steve Parkes Well, Richard Dana (Two Years Before the Mast) said that when they were homeward bound, on the last stretch the northerly current would take the boat, and the men would say "the Boston girls have got hold of the tow-rope". I was always told (by another singer; hardly an expert opinion!) tha the Liverpool Judies referred to the currents in the Irish Sea pulling the boat towards the Mersey estuary; so the Liverpool girls have got hold of the tow-rope. No need to row if the sea's taking you home. There must be other similar sayings in oter ports? Steve |