The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #128220   Message #3060493
Posted By: Gibb Sahib
24-Dec-10 - 03:10 AM
Thread Name: The Advent and Development of Chanties
Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
continuing with the ALL THE YEAR ROUND article...

//
While the sailors are "making poetry" their lives are neither bright nor comfortable; but they are infinitely better than they would be without song. It is song that puts spirit and "go," into all their work, and it is often said at sea that a good "Chanty-man" is equal to an extra hand. The chanties, or working songs, are the real sea songs of sea life. It may be that they are going gradually out of use nowadays, when so much is done by steam; but, wherever the concentrated strength of human muscles is needed, even on a steamship, there is nothing like a chanty for evoking the utmost motive power.
//

The "extra hand" bit comes from Smith.

//
Chanties are of various kinds, adapted to the different varieties of work on shipboard, and without a chanty a crew is as listless as a gang of South Carolina darkies without their plantation songs. In truth, there is a good deal in common between the working songs of sailors and of niggers, and it is curious that many of the most popular sea-chanties are wholesale adaptations of plantation airs, and often of the words also.
//

Let us not this observation of comparability between chanties and African-American worksongs.

//
For quick haulage, working at the sails, and so forth, one of the most favourite chanties is this:

We'll haul the bowlin' so early in the morning.
(Chorusl We'll haul the bowlin', the bowlin' haul.
Haul on the bowlin', the fore and maintop bowlin'.
(Chorusl Haul on the bowlin', the bowlin' haul.
Haul on the bowlin', the packet she's a rollin'.
(Chorusl Haul on the bowlin', the bowlin' haul.
Haul on the bowlin', the Captain he's a growlin'.
(Chorusl Haul on the bowlin', the bowlin' haul.

There is not much poetry in this, you will say. Well, there is not; but there is an immense amount of vigorous music when ten, or twelve, or twenty strongthroated seamen give voice to the hearty chorus, and with each recurrence of the word "haul," strain every muscle of the body in combined effort. That is where the chanty is invaluable—in timing the moment for the concentration of force. It makes all the difference in the world in the working of a ship, and the chanty will often be changed several times at some special job, until the right one is got, which sends the men together like the beat of a conductor's baton in an orchestra. A good chanty-man—that is, the soloist who starts the songs, and gives the time to the chorus —is one of the most popular, as well as the most useful, men on board a ship.
//

BOWLINE here has the format of Alden (with "We'll") while combining the lyrics to Smith's two versions.