050 - A Long Time Ago (A)

This song was very popular in English and American Ships. It was probably, in the nineties of XIX century of the most-used halyard shanty of them all. Even the German and Scandinavians popularized versions in their own tongues. This song was sung as halyard shanty. I try to recreate this song from hearted Stan Hugill's version from the album "Shanties From The Seven Seas" (1962).
"Shanties from the Seven Seas" by Stan Hugill (1st ed: p 97).



A Long Time Ago (A)

O-ho, there ships they lay in Frisco Bay,
   - Timme WAY, hay, HO,high ho!
There ships they lay in Frisco Bay,
   - Oh a LONG time aGO!

*2*
These smart Yankee packets lay out in the Bay,
All a-waiting a fair wind to get under way,                           

*3*
With all their poor sailors so weak an' so sad,
They'd drunk all their limejuice, no more could be had.

*4*
With all their poor sailors so sick an' so sore,
They'd scoffed all their whack an' they couldn't get more.

*5*
Oh, I sailed out of 'Frisco in a full rigged ship,
I sailed out o' 'Frisco in a full-rigged ship.

*6*
Her masts wuz of silver an' her yards wuz of gold,
Her masts wuz of silver an' her yards wuz of gold.

*7*
We wuz bound for New York with a cargo o' gold,
Bound south 'round the Hotn through the ice an' the cold.

*8*
In eighteen hundred and ninety-four,
We shipped in a drogher bound for Singapore.

*9*
An' I fell in love with young Malay maid,
She swiped all me money, before I wuz paid

*10*
My ol' mum she wrote to me,
She wrote to me to come home from sea.

*11*
Says she 'Me son, ye'll rue the day,
When the girls have blown, lad, all yer pay.

*12*
She sent me some money, she sent me some clothes,
But I spent all the money an' pawned the clothes.

*13*
An' ever since then I have thought of her word,
'Twas the finest advice that a man ever heard.

*14*
An' as soon as I gits me feet on shore,
I,ll ship as a bosun of a little rum store.

*15*
An' if ever I gits me feet on land,
I'll ship as some young lady's fancyman.

*16*
Oh, a long time, an' a very long time,
Tis a very long time since I first made this rhyme.