The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #126347   Message #2808283
Posted By: Lighter
10-Jan-10 - 11:16 AM
Thread Name: From SF to Sydney - 1853 Shanties Sung?
Subject: RE: From SF to Sydney - 1853 Shanties Sung?
Congratulations on the meticulousness of your research.

Unfortunately, history lacks resources to tell us for certain what shanties were sung on any voyage for which detailed accounts do not exist.

"Whisky, Johnny!" in various forms is occasionally mentioned by pre-Civil War writers, as are "Polly [more usu. 'Sally'] Rackett," "Sally Brown," "A Hundred Years Ago," and "Storm Along."

Referring, perhaps loosely, to the 1850s, Alden (1882) mentions "Haul the Bowline," "Haul Away, Joe," "Shallow Brown," "Good-bye, My Love, Good-bye," "Boney," "Shanandore," "Lowlands Away," "Across the Western Ocean," "Storm Along John," "Hurrah, You Santy!" "Ranzo," "Ranzo Ray," "Rio Grande," "Paddy Works on the Railway," "Hi, Hilonday!" and "Clear the Track!"

It may be the earliest list of shanties explicitly attributed to the 1850s by a writer who seems to have heard them at that time.