What do people know about the origin of the song "Lindy Lowe"? It is best known, I'd guess, in maritime music circles. Forebitter and Joe Stead are among those "chanty" performers who have recorded it.

It appears in FB Harlow's CHANTEYING ABOARD AMERICAN SHIPS in the current edition, but not in his unique, early section about chanteying aboard the AKBAR. Rather, it appears in the end section where he seems to have culled material from all sorts of places. That part is very poorly cited, and gives a bit of an illusion that it his material he knew first hand.

He calls "Lindy Lowe" a " 'Badian hand over hand" chanty, but there's no indication where he would have got it from.

A similar version of "Lindy Lowe" appeared in GIDEON'S BAND: A TALE OF THE MISSISSIPPI by George W. Cable, 1914. The setting is a riverboat in the 1850s-60s.

Gideon's Band

Gideon's has a lot more verses -- good news for people who sing "Lindy" and would like to add something. Nonetheless, it looks to me like Harlow may have grabbed it from there. The sort of "orthography" of the music notation (a concept I might be making up!) is just too similar,I think.

I had been recently looking at the way both Colcord and Harlow culled the song"Boston" (aka "Boston Harbour") from Whall's sea music collection -- neither reproduced it exactly (though both name the source). Harlow took more liberties, as if he felt like improving it somehow. With both versions in print, it again gives the illusion that they are collected variations of a song...which I am uncomfortable with :) My point is that, after seeing what Harlow did to Whall's "Boston," I have no difficulty imagining him "sprucing up" "Lindy Lowe" from GIDEON'S.

On the other hand, in GIDEON'S, the song is talked about like it may have been famous at a certain time. Might it have been a minstrel song? (The name "Lindy Lou" sounds like it could be one of the archetypal damsels in that genre.)

It is described as a capstan chantey in GIDEON'S; dunno where Hatrlow got the "hand over hand" bit from.

A guess a general question would be where Harlow lifted all those end-section chanties from. For instance, I am fairly convinced that he took the preceding chanty, "Gwine to get a Home" from Bullen's 1914 collection.