Here's the version from Carl Sandburg's American Songbag (1927)
THE JOHN B SAILS
O we come on the sloop John B.,
My gran'fadder an' me.
Round Nassau Town we did roam,
Drinking all night, we got in a fight,
I feel so break-up I want to go home!
REFRAIN
So hoist up the John B. sails,
See how de main-s'l set,
Send for de Capt'n ashore, Lemme go home!
Lemme go home! Lemme go home!
I feel so break-up I want to go home!
De first mate he got drunk,
Break up de people's trunk.
Constable come aboard an' take him away.
Mr. Johnstone, please let me alone.
I feel so break-up I want to go home! Refrain
De poor cook he got fits,
Tro' 'way all de grits,
Den he took an' eat up all o' my corn!
Lemme go home, I want to go home!
Dis is de worst trip since I been born! Refrain
Notes: John T. McCutcheon, cartoonist and kindly philosopher, and his wife Evelyn Shaw McCutcheon, mother and poet, learned to sing this on their Treasure Island in the West Indies. They tell of it, "Time and usage have given this song almost the dignity of a national anthem around Nassau. The weathered ribs of the historic craft lie imbedded in the sand at Governor's Harbor, whence an expedition, especially sent up for the purpose in l926, extracted a knee of horseflesh and a ring-bolt. These relics are now preserved and built into the Watch Tower, designed by Mr. Howard Shaw and built on our southern coast a couple of points east by north of the star Canopus."
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