The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #128220   Message #3064284
Posted By: Gibb Sahib
31-Dec-10 - 02:59 AM
Thread Name: The Advent and Development of Chanties
Subject: RE: The Advent and Development of Chanties
pg. 12
On the ethnic and national associations of chanties, Smith says it is impossible to distinguish British and American ones, but then goes on to say that there are some about which there is no doubt. No examples. Then notes that Black singers made up a lot of them.

//
It is almost impossible to discover which are British and which American, amongst the chanties, they are so mixed up with each other, and any which may formerly have been characteristic of the one country, have become so cosmopolitan, that the sailors themselves have been unable to discriminate between them. I have, therefore, acting upon some very reliable advice, thought it better to classify under one heading all chanties with English words, although there are many cases where the nationality is beyond doubt. Coloured men being, as a rule, such good singers and ingenious poets, may be credited with many; and most probably "Slapandergosheka' was first pronounced by some more than usually clever nigger.
//

The next passage (which I'll refrain from posting) is based on ATLANTIC MONTHLY 1858 introducing BOWLINE. However, she makes the mistake of calling it a capstan chanty. And the text + tune given are out of Alden 1882.

She admits her debt to CHAMBERS'S here:

//
This very practical and certainly nautical explanation of the use of a capstan chanty I found in an old number of Chambers' Journal, to whose clever and instructive columns I owe many hints on the subject of sailors and their songs.
//

This is the second time she called "Bowline" a capstan chanty. Is it a typo (twice), or is she really that confused about chanty forms? It does seem to undermine her credibility.

Another version of "Bowline" follows, that appears to be one of the Haswell shanties noted by Lighter up-thread:

//
Another version of "Haulin' the Bowlin'."
i. Haul on the bowlin', the fore and main-top bowlin',
Haul on the bowlin', the bowlin', Haul.
2. Haul on the bowlin', the packet she's a rollin',
Haul on the bowlin', the bowlin', Haul.
3. Haul on the bowlin', the captain he's a growlin',
Haulin' the bowlin', the bowlin', Haul.

At the word Haul, which terminates each couplet, the tars give a tremendous jerk on the rope.
//