The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #135128   Message #3080212
Posted By: Gibb Sahib
22-Jan-11 - 03:57 PM
Thread Name: 'Lost' Chanties & Forebitters
Subject: RE: 'Lost' Chanties & Forebitters
Nancy Bell, Sally in the Alley:

According to the author of "On Shanties," those were capstan shanties. Lots of potential for them to have been pull from the popular song world.

Land ho, boys, Land ho, Haul away, my Josey:

And those were one-pull shanties, e.g. sheet shanties. One imagines an emphasis on the last "ho!" There weren't necessarily any other lyrics, if it was a sweating-up chant.

I am comfortable in presuming "Josey" was "Haul Away Joe." The minstrel song "Jim Along Josie" may have been the inspiration, and it was even cited as a rowing song earlier. Cf. "Rosie," too.