The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #126347   Message #2829394
Posted By: Lighter
03-Feb-10 - 07:40 PM
Thread Name: From SF to Sydney - 1853 Shanties Sung?
Subject: RE: From SF to Sydney - 1853 Shanties Sung?
The lines about "Captain Ball," set to "Blow the Man Down," not "Blow, Boys, Blow," seems to have been written by the poet Stephen Vincent Benet for "John Brown's Body" (1928).

Benet has Captain Ball say they've "even made a song" about him. In Benet's version, "slaver" rhymes with "Saviour."