This follows on Lighter's post above of Patrick Tayluer's version of "Ratcliffe Highway." I'm writing a series of posts about Tayluer, who was one of William Doerflinger's main informants, with embedded audio of many shanties and songs. Find the series here!

Lighter asked me to provide the full lyrics to Tayluer's version, so here they are. This is as I hear it on the recording:

Now, come all you young sailors and listen to me,
Sure I'll tell you a story all about the 'igh sea.
Well, it ain't very short nor it's not very long,
It's of a flying-fish sailor bound 'ome from Hong Kong.

    With your fol the diddle lol diddy, fol the diddle lol diddy
    Fol the diddle lol diddy, hay hay, hay,
    Fol the diddle lol diddy, fol the diddle lol diddy
    Fol the diddle lol diddy, hood le dum day!

Now, as we went a-rovin’ down Rat'liffe Highway,
Well, a flash-lookin' packet we chanced for to see.
She was bowling along with the wind blowing free,
And she clewed up her courses and waited for me.

Now, she 'ad up no colors, no flags did she show;
She was round in the counter and bluff in the bow.
Where she did 'ail from I could not tell,
But I threw out my flipper and we're both bound to hell!

Now where are you bound for my pretty fair maid
I’m bound for the chain locker sir she did say
Well I’m bound there myself so together we'll go
And yardarm to yardarm I’ll take you in tow

Now, into a snug little corner, oh, soon we did moor,
Just be'ind the little table around the door.
We eat there and drank till we nearly did bust,
Then she cried out first with her Irishman's roar

Now, I’ve fought with the Irish and fought with the Dutch
With Johnny Crapeau and Johnny the Bull
Oh I’ve fought with an old stinkpot of a heathen Chinee
But she was the worst thing you ever did see.

Now come all you young sailors take a warning from me
Never trust an ‘ighway girl out on your knee
As sure as you do, oh the day you will rue
And soon to the doctor’s oh you’ll have to go.

Now come down to the ship and I’ll show you around
From her main hatch and scuttles we’ll feel to her bustles
And then we will go down into the room
And soon I will show you the brazen thin boom.

Now when you’re a sailor these things you must know
That every little girl is a ship to you in tow
But whatever I tell you I want you to be
A sailor as proud of a girl as of me.

Now when we’re around Cape Horn and for all
We won’t be back for more or more
I want you to wonder and write me a letter
And say how you love me and do me some better.

I'll bring you silk dresses and all that I know,
Fine gold rings and stones from the islands, you know.
I'll bring you home plenty of money to spend,
If you'll only wait till I do return.

I think Tayluer was both censoring himself and improvising some verses. The "silk dresses" verse in various forms is in a lot of his songs, so that was probably added as he sang. On the "brazen thin boom" line he really seems to be mumbling, and I'm guessing as to the words there--it sounds as much like "broom" as "boom." Obviously, it's usually the most anatomically descriptive verse about his "stowing his jib boom" in her "cabin," and I think he chickened out when he was singing it. There was at least one woman present at these sessions, possibly two--you hear a woman's voice on one of the discs, probably Bill's wife Joy Doerflinger, and it's possible Bess Lomax was in the room helping with the disc cutter; Doerflinger and Alan Lomax had corresponded about that possibility. That and recording machine might have spooked Tayluer from singing the dirty parts.