The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #126347 Message #2893668
Posted By: Gibb Sahib
24-Apr-10 - 06:54 PM
Thread Name: From SF to Sydney - 1853 Shanties Sung?
Subject: RE: From SF to Sydney - 1853 Shanties Sung?
I wouldn't read to deeply into "St. George's" re: ascribing a West Indian connection. How well known would that place really have been? But I think it *is* a clue. Might it have been a variation of Georgia? I don't know if you've seen my notes on these two songs in the 'Advent' thread:
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=128220#2892523
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=128220#2891821
The first, "Johnny come down the hollow" has a similar theme to Shallow Brown. And one could imagine the "Oh hollow!" chorus being related to "shallow, oh shallow...!" It's description as "a singularly wild and plaintive air" evokes the style of Shallow Brown and NOT, to my mind, "Johnny come down to Hilo" (which may just be a catch phrase that happens to appear in this rendition).
The second touches on the "sold off to Georgia" theme, perhaps borrowing that line from a stock of floating verses. "Sold off to Georgy" also has a chorus (o-ho, o-ho!) that one could swap with "shallow brown." I think there is a connection -- some kind of heritage to Shallow Brown that we are seeing here.
Perhaps someone knows whether Georgia was, in the minds of slaves from places like South Carolina and Maryland, a comparatively and particularly dreaded place.
The entire set of lyrics in this version of "Shallow", IMO, need to be taken to form a cogent image. It could come from an in-land slave song about being sold off, with no mention of ships. The whaleship might come in as a floating verse from the likes of "Sally Brown," since in that one it seems common to have used rhymes about tailors, sailors, and whalers.
Then again, perhaps this particular version *was* shaped in the West Indies, where the less meaningful "Georgia" was changed to the closest thing that makes sense ("St George") and the maritime lines added in.