BOUND TO CALIFORNIA
(Capstan Shanty)

Good-bye, my lads, good-bye,
No one can tell me why
I am bound to California
To reap the shining gold!
Good-bye, my lads, good-bye
No one can tell me why
I am bound to California
To reap the shining gold!

Notes by CFS:

This shanty...refers to the California gold rush of the eighteen forties and fifties. I have not heard it in any other collection.

Captain J. L. Vivian Millett, from whom I had it, remembers hearing it sung at Algoa Bay, in the days when the anchorage off that port was still crowded with sailing ships. A big vessel was just getting up her anchor; she had a good shanty crowd, and the chorus roared out by a score of voices came over the waters of the open roadstad with an unforgettable effect.

Captain Millett could only give me the chorus: perhaps someone who reads this may be moved to recollections of the solo part.

[Hugill reproduces the shanty, but adds no further information.]

Algoa Bay- an inlet on the eastern coast of South Africa, where Port Elizabeth stands.
There is a poem called "The California Emigrant" with the lines

I'm bound to California mines,
To find the Golden Fleece;

but no other similarity.

X:1
T:Bound to California
C:C. Fox Smith 'A Book of Shanties' p 28
M:4/4
L:1/8
K:D
z6A2|F3F F2A2|E6E2|A2B2c2(d B)|c6A A|
w:Good-bye, my lads, good-bye. No one can tell me_ why I am
F3F D2D2|E2E4d2|c2(d B) ^G2G2|(A2B2c2)A2|
w:bound to Cal-i-for-nia to reap the_ shin-ing gold.__ Good
F3F F2A2|E3E2|A2B2c2(d B)|c6A A|
w:-bye, my lads, good-bye, No one can tell me_ why I am
F3F D2D2|E2E4d2|c2(d B) A2^G2|A6z2
w:bound to Cal-i-forn-iato reap the_ shin-ing gold.

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