Tune Req: A Sea Song

Subject: Tune Req: A Sea Song
From: SeaCanary
Date: 28 Jul 08 - 04:57 PM

The book A Sailor's Songbag: An American Rebel in an English Prison, 1777-1779 has a song called "A Sea Song" whose first verse is

"You gentlemen of England who stay at home at ease
How little do you think of the Dangers of the Seas
Give Ear unto bold Mariners and they will plainly Sho
The fears and the cares we poor Seamen undergo."

(Carey 32)

Does anybody have a tune for this from any of the following sources?

Carey (33) cites the following as having the tune, but I can't find any of them WITH THE TUNE on the web.

English Songs (261)
The Skylark (1813, 25-26)
The Vocal Library (1818, 460)
Cyclopedia of Popular Song (1878, 75)
Bqaltimore Musical Miscellany (1805, 1: 62-64)
The Minstrel (1812, 88-90)
Sailor's Song Book (1842, 86-87)

Carey, George G. (editor and introduction). A Sailor's Songbag: An American Rebel in an English Prison, 1777-1779. Amherst: University Of Massachusetts Press, 1976.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Sea Song
From: Susan of DT
Date: 28 Jul 08 - 06:20 PM

It is in the Digital Tradition here under You Gentlemen of England Fare and has a midi file attached.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Sea Song
From: SeaCanary
Date: 28 Jul 08 - 07:27 PM

oops...

thank you

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Sea Song
From: Anglo
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 11:01 AM

This text (with minor adaptations) was recorded by Ye Mariners All. Larry Young took the tune from The Gallant Seaman's Sufferings, an older version of the song.

The text we used is at http://www.goldenhindmusic.com/

Follow the Products link to Ye Mariners All, and there's a soundclip where you can hear the tune.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Sea Song
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 02:22 PM

The original title is "Neptune's Raging Fury; or The Gallant Seaman's Suffering."
Sometime today I will post the compleat text from "Sea Songs and Ballads,' Stone. Author Martin Parker(?), a broadside at the Bodleian c. 1695 says the tune is "When the Stormy Winds Do Blow, &c."
There are a number of abbreviated versions.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Sea Song
From: Billy Weeks
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 03:12 PM

In a thread around five years ago, discussing the song 'Why Call Us Common Sailors', I reported that the version I learned from a Tyneside singer in the 1950s had an introductory verse (to a different tune) with the words:

You gentlemen of Engerland, you stay home every night,
Sitting by your fireside and smoking your long pipe,
While us poor lads go out to sea, exposed to wind and rain,
And never know when we go out if we'll return again.
Then why call us common sailors any more?...etc.

This seems to contain a distant memory of a song which appears in one printed version (which I have) as a glee, attributed to J W Callcott called 'You Gentlemen of England or The New Mariners'. This was published by Bown in London, in or shortly after 1818, but there are much earlier versions in print. Callcott (he d.1821) also did glee settings for 'As I Was Going to Derby' and 'To all You Ladies Now on Land'.

Calcott's glee was presumably an adaptation of Qs earlier song. The glee tune is quite different from the one I have in my head, but the words of the first verse are:

You gentlemen of England that live at home at ease,
Ah,little do you think upon the dangers of the seas.
Give ear unto the mariners and they will plainly show
All the cares and the fears (rpt twice)
When the stormy winds do blow. (rpt twice)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Sea Song
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 02:42 AM

It should be noted that the tune I provided for the DT file mentioned earlier was a 'best guess' approximation only; and for an American, not English, form. The DT text was copied from Flanders and Olney, Ballads Migrant in New England, for which no tune was noted; I supplied one from Helen Creighton, Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia, on the grounds that the texts were reasonably close. There is of course no particular reason to think that Mr Copeland's text was actually sung to that tune or to one like it.

The Sailor's Songbag text will probably have been sung to something rather more like the 18th century 'Valiant Sailor' ('When the Stormy Winds do Blow'): you can find an abc of an example of c.1735 at the late Bruce Olson's website, under the latter title:

http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/Olson/BLDTNNDX.HTM

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Sea Song
From: Charley Noble
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 08:53 AM

Interesting!

Charley Noble