The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #126347   Message #2861462
Posted By: Lighter
10-Mar-10 - 07:35 PM
Thread Name: From SF to Sydney - 1853 Shanties Sung?
Subject: RE: From SF to Sydney - 1853 Shanties Sung?
A very early ex. of the chorus, "Roll and go," though not associated with "Sally Brown."

From Isaac Baker's diary aboard whaleship "Taskar"(Sept. 11, 1842), in Margaret S. Creighton, "Rites and Passages" (1995), p. 178:

        The Taskar is the thing to roll
        O ee [sic] roll & go
        Her bottom's round as any bowl!
        O ho roll & go

If you substitute "Sally Brown" for "Taskar," you get a mild enough stanza that even so would not likely have been "printable" in the 19th C. - or in any of the best known 20th C. shanty books, for that matter!