The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #128220   Message #3061012
Posted By: Gibb Sahib
25-Dec-10 - 03:49 AM
Thread Name: The Advent and Development of Chanties
Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
Luce's 1902 edition has some differences.

The "shanty-songs" in this edition are placed in an appendix at the end. There is new text with it, that is not just copying of Adams.

//
SHANTY SONGS.
{Folk Songs of the Sea.)

Shanties, sometimes spelled "Chanteys" are peculiar to the Merchant Service. The word is doubtless derived from the French word chanter, to sing. These songs are essentially working songs, and have been used from time immemorial to cheer the seaman in his labors of pulling, hauling, and heaving. This class of songs has been mentioned by some of the modern writers about the sea, Mr. Richard II. Dana in " Two Years Before the Mast" being perhaps the first. Clark Russell, Rudyard Kipling, and several others have also written on the subject. There is an excellent dissertation on shanties in an interesting book, entitled " On Board the Rocket," by Captain Robert C. Adams, from which, with the kind permission of the author, we take the liberty of making a few extracts. Shanties are generally classed under three heads, viz., the Short Drag, the Long Pull, and the Heaving shanties. The latter may be subdivided into windlass, capstan and pumping shanties. A few of these songs have several verses, such as the "Dreadnought," "High Barbary" (capstan shanty), and "The Black Ball," sometimes called "Blow the Man Down" (a long drag shanty), and have, on that account, been placed in the body of the book; but, generally speaking, each shanty has but one or two lines peculiar to it; just sufficient, in fact, to identify it with its melody. After those are sung, the "Shanty-man" is relied upon to improvise, or to use some of the stock phrases which are well known to sailors. Captain Adams says:...
//

So, he is also influenced by Russell now.
We get the idea that DREADNOUGHT and HIGH BARBARY were capstan shanties. And he add the "Blow the Man Down" title -- something I'll bet he became aware of only in the interim between editions.

He starts to quote Adams again...with quotation marks...but it is not verbatim. Weird. He seems now to be trying to work all the chanties from the first edition into one narrative. He adds the organizational terms "short drag" and "long drag," which were not used by Adams. (Who introduced these?)

After the short drag examples, he makes as if quoting Adams, but this never appeared in Adams:

//
"Among the short drag shanties may also be classed one which was very popular and is used for tossing the bunt of a foresail up on the yard. A foresail is very heavy; and a ship is generally short handed,— moreover, the foresail is seldom furled except in the worst weather, unless the ship is coming into port (when of course all sails are furled). So when the men have succeeded in gathering the sail up close to the yard, the shanty-man leads the following ditty; and at the last word every man gives a mighty pull. Two or three verses are generally enough to bring the sail up on the yard, when the gaskets are passed and the work finished.

FOR 'ROUSING UP' THE BUNT OF A SAIL....
//

AFter going through "long drag shanties" as per Adams, Luce throws in BLOW BOYS BLOW:

//
A Yankee ship came down the river,
Blow, boys, blow,
A Yankee ship came down the river,
Blow, my bully boys, blow

A Yankee ship with a Yankee skipper, Blow, etc.
A Yankee crew and a Yankee clipper,

Oh, how d'ye know she's a Yankee clipper?
Because the blood runs from the scuppers.

What d'ye think they have for dinner?
Monkey tails and bullock's liver.
//

He follows this with his version of ACROSS THE WESTERN OCEAN from the first edition.

Then adds HANGING JOHNNY. Then a new one for this edition: HANDY MY BOYS.

cont...