091 - Horraw For The Blackball Line


This shanty was sung at the capstan or windlass. All those shanties with words "Hurrah", "Horray", or "Horraw" in the refrain or chorus were known by sailors as "horraw choruses" and very often was said that "our wild horraw chorus soon raised the mud hook (or hoisted the tops'l)". Here one of the best "horraw horuses" shanty.
"Shanties from the Seven Seas" by Stan Hugill (1st ed p 131).


Horraw For The Blackball Line


In the Blackball Line I served me time,
   - To me way, hay, hoo, ro, yah
In the Blackball Line I served me time,
   - Hooraw for the Blackball Line!

             *2*
Blackball ships are good an' true
They are the ships for me an' you

             *3*
That's the Line where ye can shine
That's the Line where I wasted me prime.

             *4*
If yer wish to find a real goldmine,
Just take a trip on a Blackball ship

             *5*
Just take a trip to Liverpool,
To Liverpool that Yankee school

             *6*
Yankee sailors ye'll see there,
With red-topped boots an' short-cut hair.

             *7*
There's Liverpool Pat with his tarpaulin hat,
An' Paddy Magee the Packet Rat

             *8*
There was once a Blackball ship,
That fourteen knots an hour could slip.

             *9*
They'll carry ye along through the ice an' snow,
They'll thake ye where the winds don't blow.

             *10*
I've seen the Line both rise an' shine,
An' crossed the line in 'em many a time.

             *11*
Oh, drink a health to the Blackball Line,
Their ships are stout an' their men are fine.