The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #152195 Message #3558478
Posted By: Gibb Sahib
12-Sep-13 - 03:16 PM
Thread Name: Origins: When Johnny Went Spearmint Rhino
Subject: RE: Origins: When Johnny Went Spearmint Rhino
The chanty is usually known as "Johnny Come Down to Hilo."
Popular (read: Folk Music) renditions tend to be based (melodically) ultimately in the form printed by RR Terry in his 1921 _The Shanty Book_.
The risque verses, while conceivably from various sources, seem to have been largely diffused from the album of "Salty Dick."
These sources have "re-entered" sites of oral learning, like sing-arounds, as well as being "covered" many times by recording artists.
There is a degree of tradition, but it has been reconstituted and the trajectory is fractured.
The song and its lyrics stand in for the quality of "being traditional" for many people, even if the performances are not so much.