The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #76196   Message #1347769
Posted By: Joe Offer
05-Dec-04 - 12:48 AM
Thread Name: DTStudy:Capt Calls All Hands/Bold Privateer
Subject: RE: DTStudy:Capt Calls All Hands/Bold Privateer
Here's the version from Gale Huntington's Songs the Whalemen Sang (1964). It's certainly "Captain Calls," but is it "bold Privateer"?
-Joe Offer-

THE CAPTAIN CALLS ALL HANDS

The captain calls all hands and away tomorrow
Leaving our girls behind in grief and sorrow
Dry up your brimming tears and cease of weeping
How happy we shall be at our next meeting

Why will you go abroad fighting with strangers
When you can stay at home free from all dangers
For I will need you in my arms my dearest Will
So stay at home with me and your promise fulfill

Fare ye well parents father and mother
I am your daughter you have no other
And when you think on me how I am a-grieving
You see the lad that I love has proved my ruin

Down on the ground she fell like one a-dying
Lying and crying and saying there is no believing
There is no believing none not one's own brother
Excepting two can agree and love each other

Bengal, 1832

Huntington's notes:
This song is also called ' Bold Privateer" and "Our Captain Cried." Frank Kidson in Traditional Tunes says that the song must go back to the time of the Napoleonic wars at least. Personally I have a feeling that it is older than that.
See Sharp (1), vol. 2, p. 175; and also JFSS, vol. 1, p. 131, vol.
2, p. 202, and vol. 3, pp. 98-99; also, JAF, vol. 35, pp. 357-358.