Here's a version not yet in the DT (grin). This would be slow & mournful.

Shallow Brown

O, I'm going to leave you
Shallow, O Shallow Brown
O, I'm going to leave you
Shallow, O Shallow Brown

Ship on board a whaler
O, Shallow Brown (2X)

Bound away for St George's

Love you well, Juliana

Massa going to sell me

Sell me to the Yankee

Sell me for the dollar

Great big Spanish dollar


The spelling could be anything from Challo, Shallow & Shiloh. Hugill points to this as West Indian in origin, saying Challo is West Indian for half caste & that this song passed through the cotton ports of the south as a cotton screwing chant. I'd add on to that, (aside form this version possibly being of the older versions) that some of the cotton plantations ran their own ships & supplied them with their own slave crews when the land work was slow. These ships traded in all North Alantic & Caribbean ports & that the hope of some was to jump ship in Haiti or England or go whaling or sailoring elsewhere, rather than be slave hands to be resold as needed. Barry