Hi Dead Horse,

The incongruity comes from your statement that current singers rationalise according to their own ideas of how they would like to imagine things (which I'm pretty much in agreement with), being preceded by a statement from Hugill that was just that. Unfortunately, the idea did not exist before Hugill (at least there is no evidence it did); it was his rationalization to explain the issue of why Santa Anna was being eulogized.

Because Hugill's book became the "Bible" and people read it like it is more or less a historical authority, it both shapes *and* confirms their established ideas (established through previous years of being shaped by Hugill, and by earlier collections that he incorporated). These ideas that seem plausible get planted, and then we see discussions trying to work out the fine details, like "hmm, what DID the blood red roses stand for? Who WAS John Kanaka the Samoan shantyman? Why DID British sailors say Santa Anna won?" It's just that the fact that these questions are even on the table is due to someone influential (e.g. Hugill) --rather mischievously when you think about it -- planting ideas.

Taking it back to the raw evidence: The fact that both Santa Anna and General Taylor were eulogized may only show that there was variation -- something we'd expect from shanty singing. Singers mix up their words all the time. There are "slots" in a shanty utterance that one fills with whatever. These lyrical concepts were also being layered, I'd argue, over previous eulogies/praise to General Jackson and Stormalong. These and General Jackson, Santiana (Sally Brown, Shenandoah, Sunnydore??) are on one level poetic devices whose use as such, I think, trumps any kind of historical explanation.