Lyr. Add: HANGING JOHNNY

They call me "Hanging Johnny,"
Away I oh!
They say I hang for money.
So hang, boys, hang!

Why did you hang your daddy,
And then your mother, laddie!

They say I hung my mother,
And then I hung my brother.

I hung my sister Nancy,
Because I took a fancy.

A rope, a beam, a ladder,
I hung them all together.

They call me "Hanging Johnny,"
But I never hung nobody.

I'd hang a brutal mother,
The same as any other.

I'd hang a noted liar,
I'd hang a bloated Friar.

I'd hang a highway robber,
I'd hang a burglar jobber.

I'd hang all wrong and folly,
And hang to make things jolly.

A rope, a beam, a ladder,
I'd hang them all together.

Come hang and sway together,
And hang for finer weather.

They call me "Hanging Johnny,
But I never hung nobody.

"The words "Hang, boys, hang," are used in a topsail-halliard hoist, when sweating up the yard "two blocks" where,
in swaying off, the whole weight of the body is used. The sing-out, from some old shellback, usually being words such as "Hang, heavy! Hang, buttocks! Hang you sons of -------, Hang."
After setting the topsails, we gave her the main-topgallant sail, which was all she could carry in a heavy head-sea. The decks were awash all day.
".... the chantey was sung with a jerk and a swing as only chanteys in 6/8 time can be sung. While the words were of Negro extraction, yet it was a great favorite with us and sung nearly every time the topsails were hoisted."

With musical score.
Frederick Pease Harlow, 1928, The Making of a Sailor, Dover reprint of Publication Number 17 of the Marine Research Society, Salem, MA.