Net pulling songs

Subject: Net pulling songs
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 30 May 08 - 04:26 PM

Do people know net pulling songs? We have one in Croatian and hear there are Japanese ones...any others? Can any one refer me? mg

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: GUEST
Date: 30 May 08 - 04:40 PM

Haul Away Joe?

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 30 May 08 - 04:54 PM

According to those who know (and Mr Google), "Haul away Joe" is a tack and sheet shanty, although the length of it suggests it might also have served as a halyard shanty. (I'm guessing that what you do to halyards takes a lot longer than what you do to sheets, i.e. sails.) I don't know if there's such a thing as a net shanty in the British tradition(s).

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 May 08 - 04:55 PM

There is a short and very dramatic unaccompanied motet in German by Schütz which describes a scene from the New Testament in which Jesus gets his disciples to drop their nets in some apparently unpromising place with miraculous results. I wish I could remember what it was, as I haven't found it again in thirty years - I think it was on a Nonesuch or Turnabout LP. It would go very well with a Croatian klapa number.

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 30 May 08 - 05:12 PM

I think the Menhaden Fishermen had net-hauling songs didn't they. I'll try and dig out my recording later for some titles. (Johnson Girls springs to mind).

Mick

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 30 May 08 - 05:25 PM

The recording of The Menhaden Chanteymen that I've got - Won't You Help Me To Raise 'Em (1990 Global Village Music) has the following titles:

I'm Gonna Roll Here
Help Me To Raise 'Em
My Way Seems So Hard
Mule On The Mountain
Going Back To Weldon
Sweet Rosie Anna
Lazarus
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Drinking of the Wine
I WIsh I Was Single Again
Mama Liza Jane
Remember Me


They adapted songs from various traditions, not necessarily nautical (some from the railroads, some popular, some church) to net hauling.

Mick

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 30 May 08 - 05:40 PM

windy old weather

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 30 May 08 - 05:41 PM

I thought this was going to be a thread about online dating for songwriters ...:-(

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: MartinRyan
Date: 30 May 08 - 05:44 PM

I have a CD (somewhere) with some amazing singing associated with net-hauling in ..... Yemen? I'll see if I can find it.

Regards

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: Padre
Date: 30 May 08 - 06:48 PM

JOHNSON GIRLS - a menhaden fishing song used to pull nets full of [wait for it!!] menhaden.

Johnson girls, mighty fine girls
Walk around honey, walk around [repeat]

Neat in the waist, got mighty fine legs
Walk around honey, walk around [repeat]

Great big legs, teeny eensy feet
Walk around honey, walk around [repeat]

Way down south they got jumaka jam
Walk around honey, walk around [repeat]

Hot like cayenne, but good, hot damn
Walk around honey, walk around [repeat]

Back on shore, gonna drink a little whisky
Walk around honey, walk around [repeat]

Back on shore, gonna get a little frisky
Walk around honey, walk around [repeat]

Padre

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: MartinRyan
Date: 30 May 08 - 07:31 PM

I think I was thinking (so to speak) of Track 9 on this compilation:

Click here

Regards

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: GUEST,Dave MacKenzie
Date: 30 May 08 - 07:41 PM

La Moresca Antica (who'll be at the Mersey Shanty Festival in July) do some Italian ones. Check out their Cd, "Marinaresca" on Arte Navale Ar Co 01CD.

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: Charley Noble
Date: 30 May 08 - 09:30 PM

My old friend Vince Morash from Novia Scotia composed one when he was a trawler man. It really had more to do with drinking rum and coordinating the net hauling (copy and paste into WORD/TIMES/12 to line up chords):

Words & Music by Vince Morash © 1997
Modified by Charlie Ipcar 1997
Tune: The Campanero
D(C/2)
Haul Away the Nets


Chorus:

C
Haul away the nets!
F--------------------C
Strain your bloody guts!
-------------------------------------G
There's lots of fish below to be rais-ed;
C
Fishing is great fun,
----------F
There's blood and guts and rum,
---------G-----------------G7--------------C
And we work and drink and work until we're paid!


C-----------------------------F
I'm ankle deep in fish and if I could have me wish,
--C---------------------G
I swear by the tail of a cod;
----C-----------------------------G
If I had another chance I'd be working at a bank,
---G----------------------G7------C
Or maybe just a farmer tossing sod. (CHO)


I'm knee deep in mackerel and I don't need a tackle,
Just a great big net and some men;
You see, the fish trap is a bowl, the fish swim in the hole,
And they never ever gets to swim again. (CHO)

Now I'm waist deep in this mess and me stomach's gonna retch
And a squid just shot me in the eye;
Fish slipping down me pants, makes a fellow wanna dance,
So I guess we best be home before the tide. (CHO)

Yes, fishing is great fun, if you like dark rum,
For it's the fuel that drives us along;
But if the winds do blow, you can betcha we won't go,
We'll just sit around and drink, and sing this song. (CHO)

You can hear a sample of how it's sung on my website: Click here for website

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: Effsee
Date: 30 May 08 - 10:06 PM

There's always MacColl's "Net Hauling Song" from the Radio Ballad, "Singing the Fishing".

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: Barry Finn
Date: 30 May 08 - 11:41 PM

Along the mid Alantic coast of the US the manhaden fisheries were using net hauling shanties up until the mid 60's (Mick Pearce gives a CD example above). There are 2 groups of old fisherman that were in that trade that sing as a group today performing these songs. The Manhaden Chanteymen & the Northern Neck Chanteymen. They fished for manhaden using purse seine nets then once the net was ready to be hauled up the men in row boats would form a circle & start by bending over the boats sides, reeaching down into the water & they'd start to haul the net up

"Won't you help me to raise 'em boys"
(now comes the long hard pull)
"Oooohhh, honey"
(they have an arms length of net now up out of the water & into the boat)
"Won't you help me to raise 'em boys"
They reach down into the waer again & grab hold of another section of net & they start pulling
"Ooooohhh Honey"
They get another arm's length of net up after the "Honey's" been sucked out of them, they reach down again
"Won't you help me to raise 'em boys"
(I'm not sure if the next is a rest or just another long pull
"See you when the sun goes down"

BTW, I've been trying to document the crossing of these shanties (or any other type of shanty, with prison work songs. So far there are only a few that I've found that crossed, 2 are listed above, "Drinking That Wine" & "Lazarus". Both have been collected as prison work songs.

Both the Manhaden Chanteymen & the Northern Nick Chanteymen have CD's out. The first is out on Rounder.

Barry

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: Skivee
Date: 30 May 08 - 11:48 PM

There's a great Japanese herring hauling shanty, "So-ran Bushi".
I believe that the Boarding Party did a cover of it.

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: Hillheader
Date: 31 May 08 - 10:22 AM

Haulin' The Nets

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: Marc Bernier
Date: 31 May 08 - 12:15 PM

Phil Edwards; Sheets and Tacks are the lines at the lower corners of the sail. The Sheet, the leeward corner & the Tack the Wind'ard. The Halyard is the line that sets the Sail. Hauling on the Halyard, (or setting the sail), took a lot longer than trimming after tacking or wareing, (turning). Typically the job at tacks and sheets took 2-3 sharp pulls.

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: GEST
Date: 31 May 08 - 02:07 PM

According to the liner notes of their 1997 album Wave Over Wave, Jim Payne and Fergus O'Byrne consider their Net Hauling Song traditional. The words are similar to the Haulin' The Nets song cited by Davebhoy above.

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 31 May 08 - 05:11 PM

Marc - thanks, that makes perfect sense.

Subject: Net Hauling Song - Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,Chris Lamb
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 11:28 AM

In DT the lyrics of Ewan MacColl's Net Hauling Song consist of four verses. This is the version heard on the 'Singing the Fishing' radio ballad, and also as recorded separately by MacColl. However, on one of Luke Kelly's recordings of the song there is a fifth, final verse:
Now the season is over so be on your way,
And head for the home port to sign for your pay;
Your missus will be waiting to welcome you home,
It's so hard for a wife to be so much alone,

Does anyone know whether this verse was written by MacColl but omitted from the radio ballad and his own recording, or whether it was added by the Dubliners? It certainly rounds off the song better than the last verse of the DT version.

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 11:45 AM

"Does anyone know whether this verse was written by MacColl "
Im pretty sure it wasn't otherwise it would have been included in the version in @The Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook" - it wasn't and I've never heard it   
It was also included in the first Ewan and Pggy Oak songbook but I can't lat hands on it - I'll check later
Jim

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: GUEST,Chris Lamb
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 12:49 PM

Thanks, Jim. I did wonder whether the verse was an authentic MacColl original, because there's an "extra" verse from Shoals of Herring that is almost never sung, but sounds very authentic:

You’re net-ropeman now - boy, you’re on the Nore
And you’re learning all about seafaring
Scraps of navigation, that’s your education
While you’re following the shoals of herring

I can't remember now which recording that came from, but it seems to be very rare.

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 06:10 AM

There is a Greek song/dance, "I Trata", which is about disentangling nets on the beach in between fishing trips. The dance figures imitate the tangles of rope. The tune is beautiful and easy to play, the dance got my feet in a hopeless fankle when I tried it.

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 06:59 AM

The Schütz piece I mentioned:

Anderer theil kleiner geistlichen Concerten, Op.9 no.XII, "Meister, wir haben die ganze Nacht gearbeitet":

YouTube version

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 01:02 PM

There's Matt Armour's song, "Shores of the Forth", the title track of the album by John Watt and Davey Stewart. The chorus goes like this:

In the auld trawl boats and the lang seine nets,
I’ve yaised up all o my youth;
Noo the herrin grund’s nae mair are fund,
Alang the shores o the Forth.


Then there are the nearly forgotten "Dreg Songs" of the oyster fishers on the Firth of Forth: see the following cut and paste and video clip:
"For many years the oyster fishermen of the Firth of Forth sang improvised worksongs as they rowed small boats towing dredges to gather their catch. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the fishery declined and the songs fell into disuse. In the mid-twentieth century, Francis Collinson and Hamish Henderson sought traces of the songs with limited success. However, an American folklorist, James Madison Carpenter, had documented the songs in the 1930s. His work, largely unknown until recently, sheds new light on these songs, their unusual structure, and their use at sea. This new understanding has enabled participants in the Scottish Coastal Rowing programme to bring the songs back to life on their home waters.

Keywords: dreg song, work song, oyster, dredge, call-and-response, maritime, tradition, Firth of Forth, Scotland, folklore".

Dreg Songs

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 03:08 PM

"You’re net-ropeman now - boy, you’re on the Nore"
Hi Chris
There are verses like this scattered throughout the Radio Ballads which have either been dropped from or have never been part of the main song
I have never heard this elsewhere
Ewan did this all the time for songs made for specific projects
I fell in love with the 'Shellback' song and leaned it (It was made fro Donnelan's 'Before the Mast'
When I checked recently I found there were three very singable verses Ewan dropped when he sang it

Pat and I were just discussing you - have we met ? - it's a long time since Pat - sadly sang, her voice 'went' years ago
Jim

Subject: RE: Net pulling songs
From: GUEST,Jon Bartlett
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 03:07 AM

There's a place in southern India I've been to a few times, and there's net-pulling from shore: a little boat made of three logs takes one end of a net out in a big curve and back to the beach. Then some forty or so pull both sides in, with people in the water at the back of the net shouting and slapping the water to drive the fish. There's singing shanty-style (a shantyman one line, the haulers the next line, etc.). I have never had any way of recording the songs, though.

Jon Bartlett