TILAPA TIRADE
(Tony O'Neill)

1) Three weeks at anchor, swinging in Cowes Roads,
Tilapa, Tucurinca, Tarialba and Tela.
Three weeks at anchor but no liberty boats,
Chuck 'em in, hoist 'em up and throw 'em over!
Chuck 'em in, hoist 'em up and throw 'em over!

2) The dockies are strikin', there's bananas in the hold,
Jamaican bananas, all green turning gold.

3) Orders came to lift the hook and sail for the west,
Feed the cargo to the sharks, a meal of the very best.

4) The Mate's loafin' on the deck and the Second Mate too,
Third Mate's lurkin' in the hold, chuckin' in with crew.

5) The Third "E" and the Fourth "E" and the Juniors all,
The Bosun and the Chippy all havin' a ball.

6) There's bananas for breakfast and bananas for lunch,
Bananas for dinner, in your cabin another bunch!

7) There's banana fritters and banana soup (eeuch),
If we see another banana, we'll belt the bloody cook!

8) One hundred and forty thousand boxes gone,
We scraped 'em from the lower hold, cor...what a pong!

9) Eight hours to the Pilot, nearing Barrios town,
Spanish "ladies" all around and Cuba Libres abound.

10) Now we're loadin' bananas for the New Orleans quay,
"Tilapa", "Tucurinca", "Tarialba" and "Tela".
"Chiquita" bananas, they can have 'em says we!...
Chuck 'em in, hoist 'em up, and throw 'em over! (x 3)

Based on true events which occurred on SS "Tilapa" commencing Cowes Week, around 1974, caused by one of the many national dock strikes. Though after ten days steaming slowly back over the Atlantic dumping 50-lb boxes of bananas all the way there was general agreement amongst the crew that the "****in' dockies" deserved everything that came to them! Written mainly in Flensburg, in August 1984.

'Chuck 'em in, hoist 'em up and throw them over' refers to the use of cargo nets to dump the bananas but Pearl Houlden pick up on this as being the way to load a bra!

Enjoy!