I appreciate that, Charley. Thanks.

***

Lighter--

FWIW, i cite both the "Minstrelsy on the Sea" and the "Recollection of a West Indiaman" in my paper. However, they were not in this thread, so you do right to post them. Incidentally, I have found that NYT article notable for being one of very few sources to say that "Marching Through Georgia" was sung as a chanty.

There are some other sources I did not include in the paper because they seemed to repeat the same point or, in the case of Harlow, were just too sticky. Harlow's presentation of this chanty is all jumbled up, but it would take a whole article in itself to explain it!

Robinson's work is problematic, and I had to keep it out of my main narrative and put it in the footnotes. Bullen and Whall's works were two that I feel, though coming from chantymen, were mediated in a way that was objective enough to include them among the "reliable" sources. Importantly, they sang the songs and someone else wrote them down. As a matter of opinion, I don't feel like they messed with the songs in any significant way afterwards.

I doubt Robinson, however. We know he tinkered with the lyrics of songs, although some might suppose this only was in the case of bowdlerizing bawdy lyrics. I think it may have gone further than that. The note is there in my paper about how Robinson says he couldn't remember all the chanties, but he "endeavored to put in the spirit of the originals" or something like that. So where our opinions would differ is that I believe Robinson had heard/sung the chanty long before (and there is some evidence to suggest "Lowlands" had not been sung for a long time), but that recent presentations may have helped to "refresh" his memory on the lyrics. And the verse he gives doesn't sound very chanty-like to me.

As I say above though, I do think "dream" verses may have been sung, and Robinson may be evidence of that. Not the greatest evidence, however, and still only a part of a small body compared to the "dollar" theme.