The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #85881 Message #1595695
Posted By: Charley Noble
02-Nov-05 - 08:47 AM
Thread Name: C. Fox Smith PermaThread
Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith PermaThread
ROLL THE COTTON DOWN (Halliard Shanty)
Oh roll the cotton down, my boys – Roll the cotton down! Oh roll the cotton down, my boys, Oh roll the cotton down!
Oh once we lay in Mobile Bay – Roll the cotton down! Oh once we lay in Mobile Bay – Oh roll the cotton down!
A dollar a day is a negro's pay – Roll the cotton down! A dollar a day is a negro's pay – Oh roll the cotton down!
Two dollars a day is a white man's pay – Roll the cotton down! Two dollars a day is a white man's pay – Oh roll the cotton down!
I thought I heard the old man say – Roll the cotton down! "Another pull and then belay!" Oh roll the cotton down!
Notes by CFS, p. 54:
Why was the shantyman so enamoured of Mobile Bay? Possibly because of the sound of it; possibly because it fitted in well with the usual shanty rhythms. There must have been some such reason: otherwise why should the name of a comparatively unimportant place appear in the shanties more frequently than any other? It is one of the minor puzzles of the subject.
"Roll the Cotton Down" is a jolly little tune which deserves a wider popularity among the shanty revivalists than it has so far enjoyed.
Notes by Stan Hugill: SHANTIES FROM THE SEVEN SEAS, p. 125
This hoosier version probably stemmed from the Negro one. The white cotton-stowers used it for screwing the huge bales of cotton into place down in the dark holds of the cotton droghers, heaving at the levers of the screws…Once the cotton season was over these men would ship "foreign," taking these "cotton chants" with them for use at halyard and capstan, hence a new infusion of shanty blood – coloured blood – entered into the field, which perhaps up till then had been dominated mainly by Irish-shaped work-songs.
X:1 T:Roll The Cotton Down C:C. Fox Smith 'A Book of shanties' p 55 M:4/4 L:1/8 K:G z6(B A)|G3D (E D) (B, D)|G2G2G3z|A3A B B3| w:Oh_ roll the cot_-ton_ down, my boys, roll the cot-ton A6(c A)|B3D (E D) (B, D)|G2A2B3c|B3B A A3|G6z2 w:down Oh_ roll the cot_-ton_ down my boys oh roll the cot-ton down.