'Wild Goose Shanty (Ranzo)' background

Subject: RE: 'Wild Goose Shanty (Ranzo)' background
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Jun 23 - 09:11 AM

Again, "Zip Coon" sheet music (1834):

I suppose you heard ob de battle New Orleans,
Whar old Gineral Jackson gib de British beans.
Dare de Yankee boys do de job so slick,
For dey cotch old Packenham and rode him up de creek.


The earliest reference to "Zip Coon" appears to be in the Mississippi Free Trader (Natchez), Nov. 23, 1832.

Subject: RE: 'Wild Goose Shanty (Ranzo)' background
From: sciencegeek
Date: 14 Jun 23 - 09:41 AM

both RR Terry and J Colcord noted differences in their versions and Terry had always been precise about where and how he had collected not just songs but often the version he had heard that he went with.

Since Colcord was American and the song seems to have travelled around it is not surprising that her version differed from those heard around the Newcastle dockside.

People love to play around with songs and tunes and I can't help but think of an old British drinking song given new words of "Oh say can you see" being sung in my old school yard, "Jose, can you see"      

that pesky folk process can be so messy

Subject: RE: 'Wild Goose Shanty (Ranzo)' background
From: Lighter
Date: 15 Jun 23 - 03:18 PM

"Jose, can you see?" was the punchline of a joke I heard around 1960.

Seems a fellow named Jose was looking for a seat at a baseball game and was pleased that so many people were concerned that he had a good one.

I remember because I thought it was hilarious at the time.

A database search takes the line back to 1924.

Subject: RE: 'Wild Goose Shanty (Ranzo)' background
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 02 Jul 26 - 01:35 PM

Here's an attempt to visualize (auralize?) an important jigsaw piece in the "Ranzo Ray" ("Wild Goose Shanty") puzzle.

Rango, rango, oh

"Rango" = pronounce just as I have done (rhymes with Django). That in itself could be important, as it puts several "unexplained" words/morphemes on a spectrum that could include "Ranzo" and "[fire] Marengo."

FYI I'm singing roughly in the range of tempo, timbre, and style (I guess you could call it?) of the originally contributor. Although the video notes explain a bit more, note that that this song was not sung while physically laboring. That is, it's not intended as a gruff and ballsy "work song."

The "captain of the watch"—a sort of bosun roughly on the same "level" of status as the common laboring crew—directed this singing as the Mississippi steamboats came into port.

Many accounts of passengers on steamboats allude to the practice of this kind of singing which they enjoyed at their leisure from the comfortable perch of the boiler deck (kind of, the "second floor" of a steamboat, where passengers had their cabins).

The man who remembered this song seems to imply (my interpretation) that this would have been one of the more common items of repertoire performed again and again by steamboat crews in this context, so one can speculate that people finding themselves in its cultural environment—the lower reaches of the Mississippi River—would have been fairly well exposed to it.

Subject: RE: 'Wild Goose Shanty (Ranzo)' background
From: Lighter
Date: 02 Jul 26 - 02:14 PM

Brilliant, Gibb.

Did Archer really sing that slow? If so, might it have been from age or else self-consciousness at being recorded?

Subject: RE: 'Wild Goose Shanty (Ranzo)' background
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 02 Jul 26 - 03:02 PM

Yes, he sang that tempo or even a few BPM slower.

He sang the song (just the one verse) first in Bb and then, after some conversation, warms up to D and sings it again.

Same lyrics both times. Minimal variation in melody between the two times, mainly just a change in ornamentation.

Archer's singing is clear and not unduly affected by age. He seems pretty comfortable in rapport with the recordist in the long-ish interview. However, yes, the environment was intimate and would not suggest using a powerful voice.

Subject: RE: 'Wild Goose Shanty (Ranzo)' background
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 04 Jul 26 - 02:42 AM

Another thread revival prompts a re-reading. I am left confused as to which of the many posts relate to which of the two completely different songs, the one starting "Did you ever see a wild goose" and the one starting "I'm a shanty man of the wild goose nation".

Subject: RE: 'Wild Goose Shanty (Ranzo)' background
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Jul 26 - 05:21 PM

did you ever sees a wild goose", is a wonderful tune imo.