"Sloop John B" is the seventh track on The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album and was also a single which was released in 1966 on Capitol Records. It was originally a traditional West Indies folk song, "The John B. Sails," taken from a collection by Carl Sandburg (1927). Alan "Lomax made a field recording of the song in Nassau, 1935, under the title "Histe Up the John B. Sail." This recording appears on the album Bahamas 1935: Chanteys And Anthems From Andros And Cat Island.[2] The song was adapted by The Weavers member Lee Hays and they recorded it as "The Wreck of the John B." The Kingston Trio's 1958 recording of the song, also under the title "The Wreck of the John B.," was the direct influence on the Beach Boys' version. Johnny Cash recorded the song in 1959 as "I Want To Go Home."[3]

The Beach Boys version of "Sloop John B." was ranked #271 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.[4]
The John B. was an old sponger boat - presumably a sloop - whose crew were in the habit of getting notoriously merry whenever they made port. It was wrecked and sunk at Governor's Harbour in Eleuthera, The Bahamas, in about 1900."

That's part of a Wikipedia article about the song. It's had more lives than most cats. Read somewhere that the first line of the refrain was "Hoist up the John B sail" thus making sail a noun and not a verb.

Don, how did you sing that line?