The same Harry Bowling whom Carpenter recorded in 1928 appears to have been the author of the article "The Chantey Passes" (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 8, 1925, p. B4.) Bowling (1867-1955) was a prominent journalist with the Times between 1912 and his retirement in 1942. He was born in Warwickshire and came to the U.S. in 1895.


Besides giving a few scraps of chantey words, Bowling's article is notable as one more eloquent statement about the nature of chanteys as the writer recalled them in actual use:

"In my boyhood I heard many of these songs straight from the crews of the windjammer, and the story of the last clipper ship and an appropriate requiem brought them back with a strange, sad rush of memory.

"These persistent chanteys had no form, little tune, and less sense. They were neither sweet nor humorous. The tunes were draggy, without beginning, middle, or end, so that they lent themselves to continuous performance. They generally had "grog" as the motif and the misery of Jack afloat for the antiphon. Yet in their right setting of tar and cordage and seamen's kits, rough weather and rougher human nature, they had the same penetrating quality as folk songs, gospel hymns, and negro melodies, in their repective and more respectable spheres.