Sailors took many parlor songs or shore songs to sea & made them their own. Around the 1770's Charles Dibden wrote a number or songs (Rose of Allendale is only one of his many), some that enticed young men to enlist in the Royal Navy which earned him a metal. Our Jack's Come Home Today, T'was On The Briny Ocean, Lights Along The Shore, Rose Of Allendale (4 versions) are a few of many that stared life on shore & were carried off over blue water. They wouldn't have been sung to work but they would've been sung for their own enjoyment. The 4:00 - 6:00 & the 6:00 - 8:00 watches (dog watches) would've spared some men some singing time while sailing in the tropics or the trades (happy hours on todays yatchs). The lonelyness of some of these songs I can see as being sung during the midnight to 4:00 watch. A fair warm breeze humming as it passes over the waves dancing crests, no horizon just a blending where sea & stars meet, the closest land a mile or so below or maybe 1500 miles away, not a bloody soul or boat to be seen for perhaps weeks or months & the crisp lights of all the heavenly bodies that have ever shone, shining down on you in all your smallness, this is when the wind, waves & water will sing, where the imagination conjure up visions of sirens, silkies & mermaids (Columbus & Henry Hudson both reported seeing them), where you might want to whale out a blue water blues song. OK, that's enough to drive me crazy never mind what it'd do to some solo sailor (were we talking about single handers, imagine being stuck with the likes of me out there & no escape?), someone toss a bucket of salt brine over my head & slap the sense into my silly little soul. Thanks, I needed that. Barry, who's been left out in the burning sun to long.