I just sang this song this week with a classroom of Special Ed teenagers- they all sing along and even dance to it. It has nice simple words, and a "joyous" melody and rhythm- you'd be hard pressed to find a human being that doesn't respond to this "natural" song. And Amos, I also don't sing it like a crusty old sailor, because I'm not a crusty old sailor. Very interesting about Lord Burgess- I always knew the attribution, but, silly me, assumed it was some old Brit folk song collector.