Interesting conversation, thanks folks.

In my original comments about shantey's I wasn't trying to make a big deal about "correctness" or really knowing how they were sung. Merely, that, at least according to Stan Hugill, "cleaned up"(sexual content, not PC stuff) when he wrote them down and taught them to us.

On Hadrian's Wall there is a bit of carved graffiti still visible, and quite recognizable as an ancient Roman willy. My point was just that soldiers and sailors probably haven't changed much in all that time and sailors probably sang some pretty crude stuff.

But the process is no different than the harmonizing of same. Originally shantey's were not necessarily all that pretty to listen to either, and probably sung in unison. Now we're accustomed to the hair's standing up on the back of our neck when we belt them out in "traditional" multi-part harmonies. And it stops people in their tracks. And is glorious to sing. And I've no desire to sing them ugly for the sake of authenticity:)

True also of women singing in with the men.

It also occurs to me that as much as these changes don't bother me, yet there is a threshold, call it the Percy French test, where they get TOO tamed, too chamber ensembled.

But none of this bothers me a whit. What is wonderful and amazing is that we sing these songs, out of love and respect and pleasure and that people thrill to them. And so the songs live on in us and those who come after us. Long after square-riggers are but legends. And they will change and new ones added and old ones endure. And to paraphrase a certain best-seller. The Lord looked down and He saw that it was GOOD.

Peter, I hope you get to Mystic someday. I spent the best time of my life as the resident shanteyman there in 1980 and still miss the foggy evenings walking on the quay where you could forgot that it was a museum which only hours before had been teeming with touristas, hearing only the creak of wood and hemp and see the tall masts of the Morgan over the tops of the historic buildings.