'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs

Subject: FAVOURITE NAUTICAL SONGS
From: Sailor Ron
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 05:58 AM

As a writer of'nautical' lyrics I was wondering which 'composed' [rather than traditional] nautical songs are'caters' favourites. For myself, amongst my favourites are, Bob Watson's 'Mollymauk' & 'Shantyman', John Connely's 'Trawler town requium, and Stan Rogers 'Lockeeper'.

Subject: RE: FAVOURITE NAUTICAL SONGS
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 06:02 AM

Cyril Tawney the name that springs at once to mind — I should start with "On a British Sumbarine" & "Chicken On A Raft"...

Hi-O = Hey-O...

Subject: RE: FAVOURITE NAUTICAL SONGS
From: Leadfingers
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 08:34 AM

And Tom Lewis carried on where Cyril left off !

Subject: RE: FAVOURITE NAUTICAL SONGS
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 09:05 AM

All of Cyril Tawney's songs.

No one did it better.

Dave H

Subject: RE: FAVOURITE NAUTICAL SONGS
From: Charley Noble
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 09:23 AM

"Pump Shanty" (1989) by Tony Goodenough is another composed one that many contemporary nautical singers assume is traditional.

Similarly, there is "Roll Down" by Peter Bellamy (1970) from his folk opera The Transports.

I also agree that Cyrill Tawney and Tom Lewis have made major contributions to the nautical song repertoire.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: FAVOURITE NAUTICAL SONGS
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 10:19 AM

All of Cyril's and John C's

Subject: RE: FAVOURITE NAUTICAL SONGS
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 12:24 PM

Anything of Cyril Tawney's. Er, that's it.

Subject: RE: FAVOURITE NAUTICAL SONGS
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 12:32 PM

Gordon BOk is hands down my favorite. Many if not all of Gordon's songs will be considered gems. Particularily The Ways of Man, Frankie on the Sheepscot, Three Boot Philbrick's Lament, his long ballads, Seal Djirl and Saben The Wood Fitter just to mention a few.

Don

Subject: RE: FAVOURITE NAUTICAL SONGS
From: kerry and Mandy
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 02:48 PM

hi Ron
our fav song has to be "Mollymauk" by Bob followed by "Sally Free and Easy" by cyril and then "Rageing Sea" by Ron Trueman-Border.
hope your keeping well.
kerry and mandy

Subject: RE: FAVOURITE NAUTICAL SONGS
From: Charley Noble
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 08:10 PM

Kerry and Mandy-

That's one I've never run across before: "Rageing Sea" by Ron Trueman-Border.

I would add Archie Fisher's "Final Trawl" and another couple by Bob Watson "Neptune's Daughter" and "Tasman Buster."

Cheerily,
Charley noble

Subject: ADD: The Jim Johnson (Bob Dyer)
From: GUEST,JimP
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 08:54 PM

My favorite right now is a riverboat song by Bob Dyer, apparently a folk singer/songwriter from Missouri who has passed on. I don't know much about Mr. Dyer, but I am indebted to him for this great song:

^^ THE JIM JOHNSON
(Bob Dyer)

You've heard about the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee,
The famous Grand Republic and the big Belle Key.
But the greatest floating palace that ever has been
Is the side-wheel giant called the Jim Johnson.

    Look out, boys, she's coming up the river
    And, oh Lordy, she's building up steam.
    Good God! She's as big as a mountain.
    That's the biggest darn steamboat I ever have seen.

She had forty rubber boilers and a forty-hinged hull,
Forty big smoke stacks a hundred feet tall.
She had four big side wheels, two at the stern.
A paddle took a day just to make a full turn.

She could slide through the bends of the mean Muddy Mo
When the river was flooding or the river was low.
And it took her two weeks just to pass by a town.
The people come to see her from miles around.

The Jim Johnson ate enough wood on a run
To build fifty courthouses and a good-sized town.
With all of her passengers, provisions and freight
She could call herself an independent floating state.

The Jim Johnson pilot was a mighty mean man,
Weighed seven hundred pounds and stood eight feet ten.
He had one good eye in the middle of his head
And a voice that could raise up people from the dead.

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 09:36 AM

Jack the Lad, Home to the Haven,by Dick Miles,
Whitby Whaler by Richard Grainger

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs
From: IanC
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 10:08 AM

Oddly enough, for me it's The Ranger ("Stately Southerner".

:-)

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs
From: agingcynic
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 10:11 AM

Humbly submitted, "The Old Sailor"

Top of the jukebox:

http://www.myspace.com/karmafarmers

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs
From: scouse
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 10:53 AM

Cyril T. of course next would have to be Stan Rogers The "Jeannie C." makes me cry every time I hear it and what can one say about the "Lock-keeper." that already hasn't been said. Such words!!!

As Aye,

Phil.

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs
From: Charley Noble
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 11:12 AM

The focus of this thread is "recently" composed nautical songs rather than traditional ones. "The Stately Southerner" is a fine ballad but it's at least 200 years old.

I'm also fond of songs composed by Rudy Sunde (NZ) such as "Auckland to the Bluff" and Ron Baxter's (UK) "Tramps (Chantey for Coaling)."

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Favourite Non-Traditional Nautical Songs
From: bubblyrat
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 05:14 AM

Anything by Shipmate Cyril, and "Let Her Go Down". Neither should we forget Shep Wooley's "Down By The Dockyard Wall",which seems to have found a niche in the UK, although I find anything with the words "suit of blue" in it a bit cheesy,personally .
( Ex- suit of blue wearer )

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: GRex
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 05:36 AM

Three of my favourites are:
         
             Dutchman's Trousers (Tom Lewis)

             The Old Figurehead Carver ( Cody & Swain)

             Tow Rope Girls (C Fox Smith)

                   GRex

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 06:27 AM

I nominate Sailortown[FOX SMITH /MILES]

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 08:03 AM

Opening the door to old nautical poems by Cicely Fox Smith releases some 70 or so poems that have been adapted for singing by our contemporaries since 1987. That door is a veritable floodgate!

Tow Rope Girls
Sailor Town
Lee Fore Brace
Long Road Home
Race of Long Ago (Racing Clippers)
So Long (All Coiled Down)
Copper Ore
Port o' Dreams
Limehouse Reach
Tryhena's Extra Hand
Mariquita
Lumber
Hastings Mill
Sea Dream
Shipmates
A Ship in a Bottle
Mobile Bay
By the Old Pagoda Anchorage
News in Daly's Bar

And that doesn't include other old sailor-poets whose poems have been adapted for singing such as John Masefield, Burt Franklin Jenness, Bill Adams, Harry Kemp, and William McFee.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 08:20 AM

Down by the Dockyard wall by Shep Wooley, Sailor's Prayer by Tom lewis, and Rolling down the River by jack Forbes, all deserve their current popularity.

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: Severn
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 08:26 AM

There are excellent writers among the Mudcatters.

Andrew McKay a/k/a Crane Driver writes wonderful songs with novel plotlines often set in or dealing with Wales, like "Made Of Wood" "Lifeboat Horses" and "Dead Reckoning".

Linda Lelly of the UK duo Hissyfit, who posts under her own name, has written gems such as "Lament" and "Luckiest Sailor".

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 08:32 AM

Carrying Nelson Home by Mike O'Connor

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: Severn
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 08:34 AM

WHOOPS!, that's Linda KELLY!. Sorry 'bout dat!


"Snap The Line Tight" by Vic Bell is another personal favorite.

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: Artful Codger
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 03:50 PM

Charlie: I didn't see any mention in the original post about "recent", only "composed". Consequently, "Stately Southerner" (and for that matter, "Gallant Seamen's Sufferings" and the many songs by Dibdin, Jr.) apply. In fact, I'm much more interested in the older composed songs than the newer, which generally whiff more of the swimming pool than of the sea.

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: olddude
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 04:03 PM

kendall doing ashes on the sea

kendall ashes on the sea

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 05:12 PM

Artful Dodger-

Given that Ron mentioned three "contemporary" songwriters as examples of what he was looking for, I assumed he was not expecting more vintage compositions. But, perhaps, Ron will clarify what he was looking for.

Another fine contemporary nautical songwriter would be Rhode Island's Jon Campbell:

Tangueray Martini-o
Catch and Release (new age whaling song)
Keep on Fishing

And then there's Mary Garvey from the Pacific Northwest with such gems as "The Cannery Shed."

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: Sailor Ron
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 07:04 AM

Charley, you are quite right , I was meaning songs from, let's say, the last 50 years.

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: kendall
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 08:15 AM

Anything Gordon Bok does.
Carrying Nelson Home as sung by Martin Wyndham Reid
Old Fid
Fisherman's wife
Old Salt. written by our own KT
The Wheelhouse door. Giles Durant
The Jeannie C. Stan Rogers
Make and break Harbor. Stan Rogers

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: jacqui.c
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 08:26 AM

Fundy Bay - Gordon Bok.
Carrying Nelson Home
Fisherman's Song
Don't Take The Heroes - Kimber
Cornish Lads
The Lockkeeper
Old Salt
Mary Ellen Carter - Stan Rogers
The Last Whalehunt - Kendall Morse

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 10:33 AM

There's also Harry Robertson from Australia:

Wee Pot Stove
Ballina Whalers
Heave Away

And John Warner, also from Australia:

Anderson' Coast
Batavia

Dillon Bustin:

Shawneetown
All Aboard the Spray

A. L. Lloyd's "Seamen's Hymn" which some now consider "traditional" (the tune is!)

Subject: Lyr Add: THE SHELLBACK SONG (Ewan MacColl)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 01:06 PM

Shellback - based on interviews with an old sailor named Ben Bright Charles Parker met on Tower Bridge in London.
Then somewhere in his seventies, he had been under sail, jumped ship in the US in the 30s and worked with the I.W.W. (Wobblies), given songs to J. M. Carpenter, and had ended up in London acting as an assistant to a escape artist who performed for the tourists visiting The Tower of London.
Parker and MacColl recorded him in his bed-sitter in North London until one day they turned up at his home to find he had joined the crew of a cargo vessel heading for Australia. He was last heard of working on a coaster in South Australia.
MaColl and Seeger produced a monograph on his life and experiences, and MacColl wrote this based on his description of life at sea.
Jim Carroll

THE SHELLBACK SONG
Words & Music by EWAN MACCOLL

I am a bold sea-faring man, I come from everywhere;
Name any point of the compass you like, you're bound to find me there.
Born in a gale in the Roaring Forties, entered in the log -
Sent up aloft to the tipper t'gan's'ls, and christened in navy grog.

All that I own are the clothes on me back and the tools of the sailor's trade;
Me fid and me palm, a few needles, a spike, a knife with a good, keen blade.
I've a hunk in the fo'c'sle, a place on a bench in the galley where I can feed,
And a hook for to hang me old oilskins up. What more does a shellback need ?

Been up in the rigging with Lascars and Swedes when the stormy winds do blow;
Bunted the royals with Arabs and Finns with the boiling sea below;
Hauled on the braces with Friesians, damn near drowned in the same big wave;
Chinamen, Yankees and Scousers and all of 'em bloody hard men to shave.

I've sailed both Atlantics and doubled both Capes more times than I can tell;
Fought the big seas in a parish-rigged barque and froze at Cape Farewell.
I've cursed the calms in the Doldrums when you'd swear the wind was dead;
Laid to off the Horn in a westerly gale that would blow the hair off your head.

I've shipped in high-loaded East Indiamen, been crew on a coastal barge;
Come bowling along on a smart clipper ship when she was running large.
Schooners, lime-juicers and barcatines, they're all well-known to me,
And I've worked as a flying fish sailor dodging the reefs in the China Sea.

To the maggoty beef and weevily bread, I've added me word of abuse;
I've pounded hard biscuit to powder and mixed it with bug-fat and jaggery juice.
With the galley awash for a week on end, I've gore hungry early and late;
Been served with pea-soup that could stand on the poop deck and scare off a blue-nosed mate.

I've signed on in short-handed Yankee ships with masters who know the score;
I've sailed with the drinkers who can't navigate a course past the bar-room door.
I've been with masters who're seamen and know how to treat a sailor well,
And some of the others, the miserable buggers, have made me life a hell.

I know all the boarding-house keepers ashore from Cardiff to Tokyo;
Know all the crimps and waterfront pimps from Riga to Callao.
I've spent me advance at Rasmussen the Dane's, I've lodged with Paddy West,
And I've know the slop-chest to take half of me screw while Big Nellie she took the rest.

I've sailed out of Rio in ballast, I've loaded grain in Frisco bay;
Raced with a cargo of tea from Shanghai on the old Thermopylae;
I've carried nitrates from Iquiqui and whisky out of Leith;
Sailed in the woolrace on old Cutty Sark, with the wind between her teeth.

Goodbye, you square-riggers, your voyaging's done, farewell to the days of sail;
Goodbye, you Cape-Horners and every tall ship that ever defied a gale;
Goodbye to the shellbacks who rode the winds through a world of sea and sky,
Your roving is ended, your seafaring's over; you mariners all, goodbye.

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: kendall
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 02:51 PM

Bob Zentz also sings some excellent sea songs.

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 07:29 PM

Jim Payne's "Wave Over Wave"

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: kendall
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 07:37 PM

Dave Mallett's song, Arrowsic is a really good one about a Maine fisherman.

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 07:55 PM

I've just scrolled through this thread and with the exception of C. Fox Smith, Linda Kelley, and Mary Garvey (I thought I posted her "Cannery Shed" but can't find it now) there are no other women composers mentioned. Maybe there aren't any more!

There is also Gina Dunlap's brilliant reinterpretation of the traditional shanty "River Lea."

There are the Johnson Girls, a favorite group of mine, but I don't think they've composed any songs.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: mg
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 08:00 PM

There is Linda C. of Vancouver BC who wrote the Canning Salmon..

There are several great women singers/writers at Fisher Poets..we really need to systematically record them...


Who else...Andrea A. of Seattle area has written some great stuff. mg

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 10:31 AM

"Canning Salmon," of course, by Linda Chobotuk!

There is also Jez Lowe''s "The Bergin" and Bill Meek''s "Time Ashore is Over."

And we have Janie Meneely to thank for composing "Twiddles."

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: olddude
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 10:57 AM

did I mention kendall doing ashes on the sea ... still my all time favorite and no one did it better. Thank you Utah Phillips

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: deadfrett
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 07:15 PM

White Squall and The Mary Ellen Carter by Sran Rogers. Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot. Dave

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 08:14 PM

Another candidate might be the "Yangtse River Shanty" which is currently blazing a merry trail around the world. Hamish Maclaren originally composed this song as part of his folk opera Sailor with Banjo in 1929. I substantially changed the wording when I adapted it for singing back in 2002, recorded by my group Roll & Go. Then Barry Finn gave the song another overhaul in 2003 and later recorded it as a shanty in 2007. John Roberts also recorded a version in 2003 which is closer to Barry Finn's than mine but with appropriate acknowledgments to us both. The latest person to record the song is Danny Spooner in Australia, who provides a sprightly concertina accompaniment.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: GUEST,Arthur
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 06:32 AM

"The Last Fisherman" by Peter Collins from Sussex.Heard aguy sing it in the Middle Bar at Sidmouth a few years ago (when it was still downstairs, had the whole place singing. What a song!

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 06:43 AM

around the harbour town ,dick miles

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: GUEST,philb
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 07:11 AM

Downeaster Alexa by Billy Joel.

Subject: RE: Favourite Nautical Songs (Non-Traditional)
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 08:42 AM

Jim Radford singing this

Gets me every time.

---

Threads combined. Messages below are from a new thread.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties
From: shipcmo
Date: 27 Jan 10 - 03:39 PM

It occurs to me that alongside the various historical collections of Sea Songs and Shanties, that now is the time to put together a compendium of the "new" shanties composed as entertainment, as opposed to "work" and self-entertainment; the new tunes, which are ballads to a lost time.
Here is a start.
Cheers
Geo

Tom Lewis "The Last Shanty", "Legend (Marching Inland)"
Ken Steven "Survivor Leave"
Cyril Tawney "Diesel and Shale", "Chicken on a Raft", "Grey Funnel Line"
Stan Rogers "Barrett's Privateers", "The Jeannie C"
Gordon Bok   "Hills of Isle au Haut", "Cape Anne"
Ewan McColl "Schools of Herring"
Charlie O'Hegarty "Classic Yankee Clipper"
John Conolly "Fiddler's Green"
Gordon Lightfoot "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"
Tom Wisner "Cheseapeake Born"
Dillon Bustin "Way Down in Shawneetown"
Archie Fischer "Final Trawl"
Larry Kaplan "Alice Wentworth"
Peter Bellamy "Around Me Brave Boys"
Peggy Seeger "The Lifeboat Mona"
Bob Zentz "Light From the Lighthouse"
Stanley G. Triggs "The Wreck of the C.P. Yorke","The Wreck of the Green Cove"
Harry Robertson "With the Antarctic Fleet"
Bob Dylan "When the Ship Comes in"

Ed Trickett (Sea Fever)
Kelly Russel (Wave Over Wave) ?
Nanne Kalma (Hand Over Hand)
William Pint
Tom and Chris Kastle

"Birkenhead Drill"
"Lower the Yawl Boat Down"

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties
From: Bert
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 03:05 AM

Here's one of mine

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties
From: bubblyrat
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 04:13 AM

Also by Cyril T ; "Haul Away the Dhhajsa"
Ditto Gordon L ; "Christian Island"
By Steeleye Span fiddle- player ; "Let her Go Down"
John Denver; "Calypso" ( song about diver Jack Custard's converted French minesweeper)

PS "Schools" of herring ?? "Shoals",you mean,surely ??--!!

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties
From: bubblyrat
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 04:16 AM

Sorry, I meant "Dghajsa", although "Dye So " is so much easier to say !

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 06:30 AM

Knittershanty By Mr Red et al.

"And it's click, knit one girls, purl one, drop one, soddit, pickitup. Oops! Cast off me girls, let's sing the Knittershanty."

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 07:07 AM

Another Stan Rogers one - The Mary Ellen Carter and our very own Micca's derivation thereof, A Shantyman that's never been to sea.

Cheers

DeG

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties
From: Hamish
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 07:21 AM

Rolling Down the River - Jack Forbes

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties
From: SylviaN
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 07:36 AM

The Luckiest Sailor - Linda Kelly

I could add more Hissyfit songs.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties
From: SINSULL
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 07:59 AM

Barry Finn's Shanty

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties
From: shipcmo
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 06:15 PM

Current List:
A?, Andrea " ? "
Baxter, Ron "Tramps (Chantey for Coaling)"
Bell, Vic "Snap The Line Tight"
Bellamy, Peter "Around Me Brave Boys", "Roll Down"
Bok, Gordon   "Hills of Isle au Haut", "Cape Anne", "Fundy Bay" The Ways of Man, Frankie on the Sheepscot,
                         Three Boot Philbrick's Lament, his long ballads, Seal Djirl and Saben The Wood Fitter
Bustin, Dillon "Way Down in Shawneetown", "All Aboard the Spray"
Campbell, Jon "Tangueray Martini-o","Catch and Release (new age whaling song)","Keep on Fishing"
Chobotuk, Linda "Canning Salmon"
Cody & Swain "The Old Figurehead Carver"
Collins, Peter "The Last Fisherman"
Conolly, John "Fiddler's Green", 'Trawler town requiem"
Denver, John "Calypso" ( song about diver Jack Custard's converted French minesweeper)
Dunlap, Gina "River Lea."
Durant, Giles"The Wheelhouse door"
Dyer, Bob "The Jim Johnson"
Dylan, Bob "When the Ship Comes in",
Fischer, Archie "Final Trawl"
Forbes, Jack "Rolling down the River"
Garvey, Mary "The Cannery Shed."
Goodenough, Tony "Pump Shanty"
Grainger, Richard "Whitby Whaler"
Joel, Billy "Downeaster Alexa"
KT? "Old Salt"
Kalma, Nanne "Hand Over Hand"
Kaplan, Larry "Alice Wentworth"
Kastle, Tom and Chris
Kelly, Linda "Lament", "Luckiest Sailor"
Kimber "Don't Take The Heroes"
Knight, Peter   "Let her Go Down"
Lewis, Tom "The Last Shanty", "Legend (Marching Inland)", "Dutchman's Trousers", "Sailor's Prayer"
Lightfoot, Gordon "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald","Christian Island"
Lloyd, A. L. "Seamen's Hymn"
Lowe, Jez "The Bergin"
Maclaren, Hamish "Yangtse River Shanty"
Mallett, Dave "Arrowsic" is a really good one about a Maine fisherman.
McColl, Ewan "Shoals of Herring", "The Shellback Song"
McKay, Andrew "Made Of Wood", "Lifeboat Horses", "Dead Reckoning".
Meek, Bill "Time Ashore is Over."
Meneely, Janie "Twiddles
Miles, Dick "Jack the Lad", "Home to the Haven", "Around the Harbour Town"   
Morse, Kendall "The Last Whalehunt", "Ashes on the Sea"
O'Connor, Mike "Carrying Nelson Home"
O'Hegarty, Charlie "Classic Yankee Clipper"
Patterson, Micca "I'm a shanty man that's never been to sea" (Tune Mary Ellen Carter, Stan Rogers)
Payne, Jim "Wave Over Wave"
Pint, William " ? "
Robertson, Harry "With the Antarctic Fleet", "Wee Pot Stove","Ballina Whalers","Heave Away"
Rogers, Stan "Barrett's Privateers", "The Jeannie C", 'Lockeeper', "Make and break Harbor", "White Squall",
                      "The Mary Ellen Carter"
Russel, Kelly " ? "
Seeger, Peggy "The Lifeboat Mona"
Steven, Ken "Survivor Leave
Sunde, Rudy "Auckland to the Bluff"
Tawney, Cyril "Diesel and Shale", "Chicken on a Raft", "Grey Funnel Line" "Haul Away the Dhhajsa",
                        "On a British Submarine","Sally Free and Easy",
Trickett, Ed "Sea Fever"
Triggs, Stanley G. "The Wreck of the C.P. Yorke","The Wreck of the Green Cove"
Trueman-Border, Ron "Rageing Sea"
Warner, John "Anderson' Coast","Batavia"
Watson, Bob 'Mollymauk', 'Shantyman', "Neptune's Daughter", "Tasman Buster."
Wisner, Tom "Cheseapeake Born"
Wooley, Shep "Down By The Dockyard Wall"
Zentz, Bob "Light From the Lighthouse"
?                   "Birkenhead Drill"
?                   "Lower the Yawl Boat Down"
?                   "The Old Sailor"
?                   "Old Fid"
?                   "Fisherman's wife"
?                   "Fisherman's Song"
?                   "Cornish Lads"
?                   'The Merchant Navy Men'

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 08:35 PM

Nice list! Thanks for consolidating it.

Old Fid was composed by Bill Lowndes

Fisherman's Song was composed by Andy M. Stewart

In addition there is the hard-driving Marco Polo song by Jim Stewart of New Brunswick, composed as part of The Marco Polo Suite.

Then there are the contemporary musical settings for old nautical poems of C. Fox Smith, John Masefield, Bill Adams, Harry Kemp, Burt Franklin Jenness, Kipling, and William McFee but maybe they fall into a different category.

None of my creations have achieved a threshold of popularity to merit a mention.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties
From: shipcmo
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 09:59 PM

Yeah, My long time friend Bob Zentz has set a number of C. Fox Smith's poems to music, but I think I'll not cover that category at this time.
Cheers,
Geo

Subject: Lyr Add: PACK O' PIRATES (John Warner)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 12:19 AM

John Warner has written a host of nautical songs - some are listed on his website

A quick list from his singing partner Margaret Walters -

John has about 12 songs in the Old Tom the killer whale of Twofold Bay series - all sea related

13 songs in his Pirates collection - mostly oriented towards young kids;

and another dozen or so songs not so easily classified - Whale Road (for example), Sydney Harbour Tugs, Murray River Shipwright.

And there were a whole lot about the Wharfies strike in 1998 - one in particular that talks about working on the cranes that move containers onto ships.

LYR ADD:   PACK O' PIRATES
John Warner © 11/10/96

We're a pack of pirates, what are we?
Pirates, pirates, yo ho ho!
Rattling along on a rolling sea,
Pirates, pirates, yo ho ho!

Patches on our eyes and big, black hats
Cannon, cutlasses and yellow-eyed cats
Heave her up and away we go!
Pirates, pirates, yo ho ho!

We've a big fat ship with room in the hold ...
For plunder, prisoners, silver and gold ...
If there's no gold in the loot we take,
We'll take lemonade and a chocolate cake ...

Under the Harbour Bridge we'll sail ...
The Skull and Crossbones at our tail ...
We'll bombard a ferry or two,
With water bombs full of paint and glue ...

Out through the Heads in our pirate barque ...
Followed by a pack of hungry shark ...
Mean black fins follow in our wake,
I wonder if sharks like chocolate cake? ...

Don't we look such a scurvy crew? ...
Covered in chocolate, paint and glue ...
Didn't we had a such a lovely day?
Won't mum have a few words to say? ...

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: KathyW
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 12:43 AM

I see you have Tom & Chris Kastle on the list but without any song titles. Of their original songs, I'm particularly fond of "Cold Winds," "Burnham Harbor" (new lyrics for an old tune), "Song for the Whales" and "Shine Out Your Light."

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: sciencegeek
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 09:33 AM

I'm glad to see that Jim Payne ( hailing from Newfoundland) appeared on a list.... but I feature to add that many on the list have a number of grand songs in the nautical vein & deserve a listen to.

So I'll just add a few names off the top of head...

like Dave Littlefield & Rick Spencer of Mystic, CT.

and Lee Murdock of IL who writes of the Great Lakes & canals.

well... back to work.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Cuilionn
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 12:40 PM

Re: request for more songs from female composers:

The Seattle vocal group, Righteous Mothers, have a song entitled "She Shanty" that gives a whole new meaning to "heave away."

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:42 PM

Cuilionn-

Well, Righteous Mothers are certainly breaking new ground with their launching shanty.

Wow!

Here are several more favorites composed by Fleetwood's Ron Baxter(?) as recorded on BLOOD ON THE ICE:

White Feathers
Common British Tars
Bite of Benin
Farewell to the Clan Line

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Mrs Scarecrow
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:49 PM

I've written a number of sea songs to add to the female contributors

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Cats
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 04:48 PM

guest arthur, Pete did not write Last fisherman, just did an excellent recording of it. The guy in the Anchor Middle bar did

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Wotcha
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 05:38 PM

No More Fish, No Fishermen: Words by Sheldon Posen, Music by John Goss (performed by The Finest Kind).

The Farewell Shanty; words by Mervyn Vincent (performed by The Boarding Party and Shanty Jack).

Subject: Lyr Add: GIRLS OF EVERY COLOUR (Andy Sugden)
From: Sugwash
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 06:50 PM

Girls of Every Colour                                        © Andy Sugden 2006

I was just a lad of fifteen years.
Destined for the mine,
But I couldn't stand that gloomy place
I like the sun to shine.
So I ran away, hitched to Hull,
Signed on the Empire Line.
I've been on that journey neigh on sixty years.

First run ashore, Lisbon town,
A lady of the night.
She took away my innocence
Then robbed me out of sight.
The other sailors laughed and howled
And said it served me right,
"But cheer up lad it'll stand you in good stead."

Chorus:

I've courted girls of every colour
In every distant land.
I've seen sights to make your eyes stare,
Let fortune slip my hand.
I've played mandolin and fiddle
In a roving gypsy band
I never had the urge to settle down.

Amelie in Toulon;
I was smitten from the start.
She got right underneath my skin
And wrapped around my heart.
She swore that she loved only me,
I adored her for my part.
She dumped me when the Yankee fleet came in.

For the love of a girl in Naples
I got put away for fourteen days.
Her papa said I "Was no good,
Beware a sailor's ways."
He was a man of great influence,
And influence always pays.
When they let me out, I still stole that girl away.

I've been chased by a jealous knifeman
Through the back streets of Rome,
Near froze on a Swedish balcony
When a husband, he came home.
Tried to shin over a harem wall
Behind a blue mosque's dome.
I've serenaded senoritas in Santiago.

I've been love struck by a geisha girl
In Tanobe, south Japan,
Had my eye blacked by a princess
In regal Rajasthan
And spent a fortune on a girl down Bugis Street
Who turned out to be a man.
Theres some lessons I'm just never going to learn.

I've had my heart broke and broken hearts
All around the Seven Seas,
From Vera Cruz east to Panama,
Where e'er I could take my ease.
From Spitsbergen in the far flung north
To Antarctica's icy seas,
These itching feet will always drive me on.

But now my bones are aching
And my eyesight's damned near failed,
I'm returning to that little town
Against which I've oft time railed.
And I'll tell tales in the pub at night
Of all the seas I've sailed.
Any regrets? No, not a blasted one!

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 10:00 PM

Sugwash-

Wow! Where was that recorded?

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: KathyW
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 01:04 AM

Charley: you can find Sugwash's song on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvjRPghID9E (pops)

Good song!

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Crane Driver
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 09:12 AM

Thanks for including me in this illustrious list

Words of many of my songs are available on our website Crane Drivin' Music

I'm always happy for people to sing my songs

Andrew "Crane Driver" McKay

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Sugwash
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 02:04 PM

Thanks Charley and Kathy. YouTube is the only place I've recorded the song as yet, and that was only to pass the tune on to a friend.

It was based on the tall tales of two American seamen I met in a dockside bar in Toulon. They were both in their sixties had some great yarns to tell. They spent the evening trying to out do each other with ever more improbable situations they'd been in. And they didn't actually use the word 'courted', but needs must in polite society, so I altered that. The song was was also informed by my time in the Royal Navy's submarine service; happy daze.

Cheers

Andy

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: shipcmo
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 03:46 PM

Thanks for all the contributions. He're's the current list. Italicised titles did not come across.

Tuneful Tales with Rousing Choruses
                     and
       Ballads to a Lost Time

Armour, Matt   Shores O' the Forth
Baxter, Ron   Tramps (Chantey for Coaling), White Feathers, Common British Tars, Bite of Benin,
                      Farewell to the Clan Line
Bell, Vic   Snap the Line Tight
Bellamy, Peter   Around Me Brave Boys, Roll Down
Bok, Gordon   Hills of Isle au Haut, Cape Anne, Fundy Bay The Ways of Man, Frankie on the Sheepscot,
                         Three Boot Philbrick's Lament, Seal Djirl and Saben, The Wood Fitter
Bryant, Jerry   Harbo & Samuelson
Bustin, Dillon   Way Down in Shawneetown, All Aboard the Spray
Campbell, Jon   Tangueray Martini-o, Catch and Release (new age whaling song), Keep on Fishing
Chobotuk, Linda   Canning Salmon
Cody & Swain   The Old Figurehead Carver
Colclough, Phil   Liverpool John
Collins, Peter   
Conolly, John   Fiddler's Green, Trawler Town Requiem, The Grimsby Lads (with Bill Meek)
Cove, Edward C. Where's Your Money Gone
Denver, John   Calypso (song about diver Jack Custard's converted French minesweeper)
Dickie, Neil   The Clumsy Lover
Dunlap, Gina   River Lea (new arrangement)
Durant, Giles   The Wheelhouse Door
Dyer, Bob   The Jim Johnson
Dylan, Bob   When the Ship Comes in
Eaton, Nigel   Last Chance
Fischer, Archie   Final Trawl
Forbes, Jack   Rolling down the River
Garvey, Mary   The Cannery Shed
Goodbrand, D.S. The Kola Run
Goodenough, Tony   Pump Shanty
Grainger, Richard   Whitby Whaler
Hansell, Bert   Ho Ro Ho
Joel, Billy   Downeaster Alexa
KT? Old Salt
Kalma, Nanne   Hand Over Hand
Kaplan, Larry   Alice Wentworth (O'Zeb)
Kastle, Tom and Chris   Cold Winds, Burnham Harbor (lyrics for an old tune), Song for the Whales,
                                     Shine Out Your Light
Kelly, Linda   Lament, Luckiest Sailor
Kimber   Don't Take The Heroes
Knight, Peter   Let her Go Down
Lewis, Tom   The Last Shanty, Legend (Marching Inland), Dutchman's Trousers, Sailor's Prayer,
                     Inside Every Sailor
Lightfoot, Gordon   The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Christian Island
Littlefield, Dave
Lloyd, A. L.   Seamen's Hymn
Lowe, Jez   The Bergin
Lowndes, Bill   Old Fid
Maclaren, Hamish   Yangtse River Shanty
Mallett, Dave   Arrowsic is a really good one about a Maine fisherman.
McColl, Ewan   Shoals of Herring, The Shellback Song
McKay, Andrew   Made Of Wood, Lifeboat Horses, Dead Reckoning
Meek, Bill   Time Ashore is Over
Meneely, Janie   Twiddles
Miles, Dick   Jack the Lad, Home to the Haven, Around the Harbour Town
Morse, Kendall   The Last Whalehunt, Ashes on the Sea
Murdock, Lee
O'Connor, Mike   Carrying Nelson Home
O'Hegarty, Charlie   Classic Yankee Clipper
Patterson, Micca   I'm a shanty man that's never been to sea (Tune Mary Ellen Carter, Stan Rogers)
Payne, Jim   Wave Over Wave
Pint, William " ? "
Posen, Sheldon   No More Fish, No Fishermen (Music by John Goss)
Reader, Ann    Sailor's wife, Lost at Sea, Whatever the Tallships Bring, Singing in the Public House tonight,
                        Tomorrow we'll be on our way, Hold Fast, Christmas Shanty
Robertson, Harry   With the Antarctic Fleet, Wee Pot Stove, Ballina, Whalers, Heave Away, Deep Sea Tug
Rogers, Stan   Barrett's Privateers, The Jeannie C, Lockeeper, Make and break Harbor, White Squall,
                      The Mary Ellen Carter
Russel, Kelly " ? "
Seeger, Peggy   The Lifeboat Mona
Shearman, Rod   Is the Big Fella Gone?
Skilling, Doug and Martin, Davit BLUENOSE
Smith, Buzz (words), Neil Downey (tune)   CW-9-cn "PEEWIT"

Spencer, Rick
Steven, Ken    Survivor Leave
Stewart, Andy M.   Fisherman's Song
Stewart, Jim   Marco Polo
Sugden, Andy   Girls of Every Colour
Sunde, Rudy   Auckland to the Bluff
Tawney, Cyril   Diesel and Shale, Chicken on a Raft, Grey Funnel Line, Haul Away the Dhhajsa,
                      On a British Submarine, Sally Free and Easy, Six Feet of Mud
Trickett, Ed   Sea Fever
Triggs, Stanley G.   The Wreck of the C.P. Yorke, The Wreck of the Green Cove
Trueman-Border, Ron   Rageing Sea
Vincent, Mervyn   The Farewell Shanty
Warner, John   Anderson' Coast, Batavia
Watson, Bob   Mollymauk, Shantyman, Neptune's Daughter, Tasman Buster
Wisner, Tom   Cheseapeake Born
Wooley, Shep   Down By The Dockyard Wall
Zentz, Bob   Light From the Lighthouse

                   The Last Fisherman
?                   Birkenhead Drill
?                   Lower the Yawl Boat Down
?                   The Old Sailor
?                   Fisherman's Wife
?                   Cornish Lads
?                   The Merchant Navy Men
?                   The Loss of the Evelyn Marie

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Sugwash
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 05:25 PM

Also, and I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner, 'Port of Call' by Kieran Halpin.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE DOWNEASTER "ALEXA" (Billy Joel)
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 05:49 PM

From an unlikely source, Billy Joel, comes this song named, I believe, for his daughter. Maybe not a shanty, but with a good nautical sentiment.


THE DOWNEASTER "ALEXA"

Well I'm on the Downeaster "Alexa"
And I'm cruising through Block Island Sound
I have chartered a course to the Vineyard
But tonight I am Nantucket bound

We took on diesel back in Montauk yesterday
And left this morning from the bell in Gardner's Bay
Like all the locals here I've had to sell my home
Too proud to leave I worked my fingers to the bone

So I could own my Downeaster "Alexa"
And I go where the ocean is deep
There are giants out there in the canyons
And a good captain can't fall asleep

I've got bills to pay and children who need clothes
I know there's fish out there but where God only knows
They say these waters aren't what they used to be
But I've got people back on land who count on me

So if you see my Downeaster "Alexa"
And if you work with the rod and the reel
Tell my wife I am trolling Atlantis
And I still have my hands on the wheel

Now I drive my Downeaster "Alexa"
More and more miles from shore every year
Since they told me I can't sell no stripers
And there's no luck in swordfishing here

I was a bayman like my father was before
Can't make a living as a bayman anymore
There ain't much future for a man who works the sea
But there ain't no island left for islanders like me

Subject: Lyr Add: THE DARK AND THE ROLLING SEA
From: mousethief
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 06:17 PM

Not a shanty, but nautical throughout. Allegedly about an unhappy love affair -- a very elaborate form of "may you choke on it"!

THE DARK AND THE ROLLING SEA
Al Stewart

Oh you slipped away from the harbour side
In the morning bright and clear
And your sails were filled with the rising wind
And you laughed for all to hear
But you never glanced at the ragged dance
Of your lovers on the quay
Don't call on them when the winds rise high
On the dark and the rolling sea

Oh you set your course for the furthest shores
And you never once looked back
And the flag you flew was a pirate cross
On a field of velvet black
And those landsmen who you but lately knew
Were left stranded on the lea
Don't call on them when the storm clouds rise
On the dark and the rolling sea

Oh I have no need of a chart or creed
You told your waiting crew
For the winds of chance, they will bear us straight
And you spoke as though you knew
So you paid no mind to the warning signs
As you gave your words so free
Don't change your tack when the timbers crack
On the dark and the rolling sea

Now the thunder rails in the great mainsails
And the stars desert the skies
And the rigging strains as the hands of rain
Reach down to wash your eyes
And your oarsmen stands with his knife in hand
And his eyes spell mutiny
Don't call my name when your ship goes down
On the dark and the rolling sea


O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: shipcmo
Date: 08 Feb 10 - 08:42 AM

Still looking for input.
TNX

Subject: Lyr Add: WAKE UP SUSIANA
From: Charley Noble
Date: 08 Feb 10 - 01:39 PM

George-

Well, here's a newer shanty that I found in the lining of an old sea chest:

Parody written by Charlie Ipcar © 2001
Adapted from Felice & Boudleaux Bryant © Wake Up Little Suzie
Tune: a slow shanty shout roughly based on the original tune

WAKE UP SUSIANA

Chorus:

Wake up, Susiana, wake up!
Wake up, Susiana, wake up!

We've both been sound asleep – Umph!
Wake up, Susiana, and weep – Umph!
Blue Peter's flying, there's no denying,
We're in trouble deep!
Wake up, Susiana! – Umph!
Wake up, Susiana! – Umph!
We gotta ship out! (CHO)

Now we said we'd be aboard by ten – Umph!
Susiana, we've goofed again – Umph!
The bosun's a-calling, the capstan's a-pawling,
And we're three sheets to the wind!
Wake up, Susiana! – Umph!
Wake up, Susiana! – Umph!
We gotta ship out! (CHO)

Now the rum it wasn't so hot – Umph!
But we drank up all of our tot – Umph!
You're still asleep, our duff is deep,
Our reputation is shot!
Wake up, Susiana! – Umph!
Wake up, Susiana! – Umph!
We gotta ship out! (CHO)

Now the mudhook's up and down – Umph!
But we're still stuck in town – Umph!
What we gonna tell the Old Man
When he looks at us with a frown?
Wake up, Susiana! – Umph!
Wake up, Susiana! – Umph!
We gotta ship out! (CHO)

We've both been sound asleep – Umph!
Wake up, Susiana, and weep – Umph!
Blue Peter's flying, there's no denying,
It's time for the pierhead leap!
Wake up, Susiana! – Umph!
Wake up, Susiana! – Umph!
We gotta ship out!
We gotta ship out!

You can hear a MP3 sample of how this is sung: Click here for MP3!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Cats
Date: 08 Feb 10 - 04:27 PM

Cornish Lads was written by Roger Bryant

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 08 Feb 10 - 05:27 PM

http://www.myspace.com/timleaning
Just uploaded my song Three weeks on the player.
Its sort of a sea song.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: KathyW
Date: 08 Feb 10 - 10:28 PM

I have a few more for the list.

I can think of least one by William Pint: "The Packet Rat" (C. Fox Smith poem set to music by William Pint)

Add to the listings for Tom & Chris Kastle, "The Black Dog of Lake Erie," "The Eastland," and "Amor Es El Rio" (Our Love is the River). There are others . . .

You don't have my absolute favorite Bob Zentz song listed: "Ocean Station Bravo." And "Eight Bells" is also quite wonderful. But of course he's written many.

For Jerry Bryant, add "Jimmy's Mobile Phone," "Crossing the Line," "The Dreadnought Mutiny," and "Thomas Bird."

By members of Bounding Main:
*"To Ireland We'll Go" by Maggie Hannington
*"Pass the Mug" by Gina Dalby and Christine Dalby
*"Toss and Roll" by David Yondorf

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: bubblyrat
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 07:13 AM

"The Good Ship "Calabar" "----origin unknown !

excerpt ;
             "Put on more speed !!" the Captain cried,
                For we are sorely pressed !";
                The engineer on the riverbank said
                "The old horse is doing its best !"

etc.

Subject: Lyr Add: VENEZUELA TO TRINIDAD
From: Charley Noble
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 10:42 AM

One of the last songs that the late Barry Finn introduced to the sea music community was this modern day merchant mariner song:

By Roger Hussey, crew on the Norwegian MST (Motor Ship Tanker) Borjholt
From the singing of Barry Finn 9/17/07

VENEZUELA TO TRINIDAD

On the Venezuela to Trinidad run (Trinidad run)
Our ship goes to hell, we're all havin' way too much fun (way too much fun)

Chorus:

Venezuela to Trinidad,
Trinidad to Venezuela!

Venezuela is flamenco, an' hot guitar strums (hot guitar strums)
Trinidad is calypso, an' loud steel drums (loud steel drums) (CHO)

Carry crude oil to Trinidad refineries (refineries)
To Venezuela for more crude, we run back empty (run back empty) (CHO)

For most tankers it's long at sea, short time in port (short time in port)
But we've tied up long, our sea time is short (sea time is short) (CHO)

When we tie up, the bar girls an' taxi cabs come (taxi cabs come)
Here comes a weekend, of riot an' rum (riot an' rum) (CHO)

Lars is locked in his cabin, the rich owner's son; (rich owner's son)
He's a drunken exile, at thirty-one (at thirty-one) (CHO)

If we're rowdy ashore, we end up in jail (end up in jail)
Rum an' pesos from Lars, an' we're soon out on bail (soon out on bail) (CHO)

Miss our sailing, hung over, roll over an' then (roll over an' then)
Wait a week, stay drunk, an' our ship's back again (our ship's back again) (CHO)

Beg the purser, "Please, just one more advance!" (one more advance)
What with girls an' booze, your wallet does not stand a chance (not stand a chance) (CHO)

After eight trips the chief''s at the end of his wits (end of his wits)
After ten trips they send us, back home to refit (home to refit) (CHO)

So it's pack up an' back to the hirin' hall (the hirin' hall)
An' it's farewell to flamenco, an' steel drums all (an' steel drums all) (CHO)

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Snuffy
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 09:35 AM

'F223' by Roy Jones, who sang it at Alcester Folk Club last night. Recorded by Karen & Colin Thompson on Time and Tide, 2001.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: shipcmo
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 06:52 AM

Refresh,
Still here, but had 3 (three) computers crash, all at once!

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 07:22 AM

Is there a distinction to be made between modern songs of modern seafaring, as with the likes of Tawney and Stan Rogers, and those that are written as of another time, like Sailor's Prayer?

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: doc.tom
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 07:23 AM

"The Farewell Shanty; words by Mervyn Vincent (performed by The Boarding Party and Shanty Jack)"

Mervyn didn't write the Farewell Shanty. The words were found by Alan Molyneux in a book in Plymouth Library - he set it to music. He gave it to Mervyn in 1964/5. Mervyn introduced it into the local extant singing tradition in North Cornwall (he was particularly enthused by the possibilities for bass parts). From thence it went into the folk revival - largely via Collins & Mageean.

TomB

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Charley Noble
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 08:10 AM

Tom-

"Mervyn didn't write the Farewell Shanty. The words were found by Alan Molyneux in a book in Plymouth Library - he set it to music."

Thanks for that update. That's the first time I've heard of anyone other than Mervyn associated with the origin of this song. Of course I'm now wondering what the title of the book was in the Plymouth Library. Anyone have a clue?

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: doc.tom
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 12:32 PM

Charley,
We never found out. Alan died of leukemia in 1967 (I think it was). But we were given the extra 'Deep blue ocean' verse on the Isle of Wight in 1975/6 by another guy who just sang us the verse and then disappeared before we could nail him (Ken Shephens was there as the time). You couldn't make it up, could you!
TomB

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Banjiman
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 01:16 PM

Try this one:


The Visiter (who is that banjo player?)

and this one:

Sleep Well

Both written by Wendy Arrowsmith

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 02:29 AM

Richard Grainger's Whitby Whaler has been mentioned. My favorite of his is Scarborough Fisherman. It's a beautiful melding of music and lyrics. George Vancouver, and The Endeavor Shanty are also fine songs of his, just to mention a few.

Cindy Kallet composes many maritime oriented songs, and she a has a captivating voice. Her debut album, Working On Wings To Fly, is classic. These aren't chanteys, but modern songs of coastal communities. Her opening song on that cd, Nantucket Sound, had for me the same effect as when I first heard Grainger's Scarborough Fisherman: I was hooked, and I will never forget the first time I heard them.

Chanteyranger

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,Roger Quigley
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 10:52 AM

Tyhere is a nautical theme song competition associated with 2010 Wessex Folk Fest. Cash Prizes and adulation on offer. Check www.wessexfolkfestival.co.uk

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jul 10 - 02:16 PM

Anybody know of a song that has a line about "pollywogs get on your knees and pay your dues to mighty king neptune" ? Sorry, just heard a few seconds on the radio and want to track this sucker down.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Jul 10 - 03:02 PM

here is most of a song, I wrote 20 years ago, jack The Lad[copywrite 1987] the rest is available at my website, hope you enjoy.
of course amateurs and others are very welcome to sing it,if anyone does record it, it has to be logged with prs.thanks.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-uf8L6ZB3I

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,Charlie Frederick
Date: 19 Jul 10 - 07:10 AM

I wrote the first song about the Edmund Fitzgerald. "Twenty-Nine More Men" was recorded and released after Gordon's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". I also wrote the song "Rough and Ready Son-of-a Sailor"...a song about a friend of mine who was a Captain who sailed the Great Lakes and beyond. These songs were written and recorded in the late 70's while I was on staff at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Charley Noble
Date: 19 Jul 10 - 08:01 AM

Charlie Frederick-

Would you please post these songs on separate threads as "Lyric Adds."

They sound interesting.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: Lyr Add: SEA CHANTY (Abe Burrows)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 26 Oct 10 - 12:51 PM

Here's a humorous take on the traditional sea shanty by Abe Burrows that I haven't run across before:

By Abe Burrows (1910-1984), © 1955 Abram S. Burrows, William Morris Agency
From THE SEA, SHIPS AND SAILORS, edited by William Cole,
The Viking Press, New York, © 1967, pp. 122-123

SEA CHANTY

Our ship is leaving Portsmouth town,
Her name's the good ship Nancy Brown.

Yo ho,
Jib the boom,
Poop the deck,
Rattle the hatch,
Main the sail,
Pepper the mints,
Anchors aweigh in the morn.

Oh, we'll be sailing with the tide,
We've said farewell to our girls and brides,

Yo ho,
Rig the ratch,
Hoist the hitch,
Bury the hatchet,,
Poop the deck,
Beat the breeze,
That she blows in the morn.

And soon we'll ne out on the ocean foam,
So let's heave ho with a will,
And come, jolly tars, let's sing while we can,
For soon we'll be deathly ill!

For there's nothing life the life of a sailor,
Sailing on the briny foam,
With a good stout ship beneath your feet,
And a good stout wife at home.

Oh, there's nothing, nothing, nothing like a sailor's life,
The sailor's life is grand,
Oh, I'd never give up the sea unless
You offered me a job on land.

So it's three jolly cheers for the sea,
And a fond farewell to dry land,
So up with the anchor and we won't set it down
Till we reach old Coney Island!

Singing yo ho,
Hit the deck,
Follow the fleet,
Anchor's aweigh,
Scuttle the butt,
Roll the dice,
Deal the cards,
Pepper the mints,
We're sailing away on the sea.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: Lyr Add: THE GREENWICH PENSIONER
From: GUEST,John from "Elsie`s Band"
Date: 26 Oct 10 - 02:03 PM

This is certainly not new. It was published in London in by Robert Sayer in March 1791. I have put it to music and it is now part of our repertoire.

THE GREENWICH PENSIONER.

'Twas in the good ship Rover
I sail'd the world around.
And for three years and over,
I ne'er touch'd British ground;
At length in England landed,
I left the roaring main,
Found all relations stranded,
And went to sea again.

That time, bound straight to Portugal,
Right fore and aft we bore;
But, when we'd made Cape Ortugal,
A gale blew off the shore:
She lay, so did it shock her,
A log upon the main,
Till, sav'd from Davy's locker,
We stood to sea again.

Next in a frigate sailing,
Upon a squally night,
Thunder and lightning hailing
The horrors of the fight;
My precious limb was lopped off,
I, when they'd eas'd my pain,
Thank'd God I was not popped off,
And went to sea again.

Yet still am I enabled
To bring up in life's rear,
Although I am disabled
And lie in Greenwich tier;*
The king, God bless his royalty,
Who saved me from the main,
I'll praise with love and loyalty,
But ne'er to sea again.

*(Greenwich Tier refers to the Sailors Hospital there.)

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Charley Noble
Date: 26 Oct 10 - 04:41 PM

John-

A very similar version of "The Greenwich Pensioner" was also published in John Ashton's Real Sailor-Songs, © 1891, pp. 147-148. What do you use for a tune? There's no clue in Ashton.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Nancy King
Date: 26 Oct 10 - 05:52 PM

Still looking for sea-oriented songs by women writers? I nominate "Wiscasset Schooners" by my good friend Lois Lyman. It's been recorded by Gordon Bok (with Lois), David Coffin, Geoff Kaufman, and maybe a couple of others.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Charley Noble
Date: 26 Oct 10 - 07:19 PM

Nancy-

That's a nice one. Will you post the lyrics?

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Leadfingers
Date: 26 Oct 10 - 07:35 PM

100

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Charley Noble
Date: 26 Oct 10 - 08:11 PM

Thanks, Terry, for your contribution.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: kendall
Date: 26 Oct 10 - 08:14 PM

Thanks Nancy, please do post those lyrics. Excellent song.

I wonder if "The Siren's Song" might qualify?

Subject: Lyr Add: WISCASSET SCHOONERS
From: Nancy King
Date: 26 Oct 10 - 09:58 PM

OK, here goes. The schooners of the song, "Hesper" and "Luther Little," were beached in Wiscasset, Maine, in 1932, and remained there, an unlikely tourist attraction, until the debris from the disintigrating hulks became a hazard to navigation. They were finally demolished in 1998. I remember sneaking aboard them in the early 1960s with Lois and some other friends -- strictly forbidden, but fascinating and fun. Lois wrote the song in 1985. Gordon sings a couple of words slightly differently on the "Schooners" CD, but this is the way the lyrics are printed in the accompanying booklet:


WISCASSET SCHOONERS
(Lois Lyman)

Do you remember riding home before a dying summer breeze,
Your topsails gleaming golden, setting sun among the trees,
And the osprey wheeling slowly through the shadows by the shore,
Where the towering cliffs of granite plunge ten fathoms deep or more,
And the eddies swirl and flow down below.

You were solid-built of Douglas fir and oak and yellow pine,
Two hundred feet, sailed by a crew that numbered only nine,
Hauling lumber through your timberports, and dyewood from the south
Running home from Norfolk bringing coal to heat the north
And whatever they could stow down below.

But the winter is upon you now, and time is passing slow
And the tides ebb and flow down below.

You served them well for fifteen years, your canvas all unfurled
When New England sailing ships were found in ports around the world,
But spars gave way to smokestacks, clouds of white to black and grey,
There was nothing left for you to do but waste your time away,
And the rot was spreading slow down below.

And the winter...

From Wiscasset to the China Lakes the Narrow Gauge did run,
To push it northward to Quebec was old Frank Winter's plan--
And schooners were to bring his cargoes in to meet the train,
When he found you idle on the dock, he brought you down to Maine
Where the tides ebb and flow down below.

You know he tried the best he could, but he just couldn't make it pay
So he ran you both aground, and turned around and walked away;
You've been waiting here for fifty years, but no one set you free,
Now you're broken down and dying, lying open to the sea,
And the tides ebb and flow down below.

And the winter...

The people come to stare at you with wonder in their eyes
For times have changed since men knew how to work a ship your size.
The seas you sailed are running black; in time we'll know our loss--
It's too late now for you, and is it too late now for us?
Can you teach us what you know before you go?

For the winter is upon you now, and time is passing slow
And the tides ebb and flow down below. (twice)

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: kendall
Date: 27 Oct 10 - 07:33 AM

I remember driving by those hulks and wondering about them.
This is an excellent song and I'd like to see it become very well known.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: janemick
Date: 27 Oct 10 - 03:31 PM

chicken on a raft, grey funnel line and the oggy man by Cyril T
awnwy

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 27 Oct 10 - 03:39 PM

http://www.myspace.com/timleaning


Self serving link to a song called three weeks.
its about the darker side of the fishing trade.

It comes from the way the trawlers used to be away at sea for three weeks then home for three days.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 27 Oct 10 - 04:05 PM

I wrote a chorus to the poem ny John Masefield about Long John Siver.

access it here:-

http://www.bigalwhittle.co.uk/id24.html

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Charley Noble
Date: 27 Oct 10 - 10:31 PM

Nancy and Kendall-

I'm thinking about pulling together all the photographs my brother and I made of the Wiscasset schooners in the early 1960's for a Facebook album. It really was a shame that the Town of Wiscasset never spent a cent trying to preserve them or construct a replica.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Trunklesqueezer
Date: 16 Feb 12 - 12:17 AM

If I'm not mistaken, 'The Birkenhead Drill' was written by Ken Stephens from somewhere near Southampton.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 16 Feb 12 - 07:39 AM

YouTube - Birkenhead drill

Subject: Lyr Add: DRINK TO THE MEN WHO'VE GONE ASHORE
From: Charley Noble
Date: 16 Feb 12 - 08:04 AM

Oh my, I've missed this thread! Thanks for reviving it, Ron. There are a lot of songs that have surfaced in the last year and a half. Here's one of my favorite new ones, inspired by a poem by marine engineer and writer William McFee who provided the chorus (copy and paste into WORD/TIMES/12 to line up chords):

By William McFee, 1909
From Songs of the Sea and Sailors' Chanteys, edited by Robert Frothingham, published by Houghton Mifflin Co., Cambridge, US, © 1924, p. 208; first published in The New York Evening Post.
Verses by Charles Ipcar, © 2011
Tune: Charles Ipcar, © 2011
Key: Em (9/Gm)

DRINK TO THE MEN WHO'VE GONE ASHORE

Dm--C--Dm-------C---F-----Dm--C---- Dm
Now the Skipper and Chief have gone ashore
-----------------F----C-Dm
They're off to Sail-or-town,
--------Gm--------------------Dm---F-Dm
So I'll tell you a tale of Old Sing-a-pore,
-------------C---Dm-C-----Dm
While we pass the bottle round.
---Gm----------------------Dm-F-Dm
I'll tell you a tale of Old Sing-a-pore,
----Gm-------------Dm
Of famous Malay Street,
------Gm---------------Dm-F--Dm
With its samshu dives by the score,
-----------C---Dm-C------Dm
And the rick-sha girls so sweet.

Chorus:

Dm-------C------F----Dm--- C-----Dm
So drink to the men who've gone ashore,
--------------------F-------C----Dm
With a one-two-three – rum-tum!
Gm--------------------------Dm--F------Dm
Half a dozen men on the mess room floor,
C-----------------------------F----C-Dm
Drink to the men who've gone a-shore,
Gm-------------------------Dm-----F--Dm
Six good men with their throats all sore –
----C--Dm-C---------Dm
Yo ho for a bottle o' rum!

As I was cruising down the Street,
After a drop or twa,
I spied a girl just like a pearl,
Alone in a Jin-rick-sha.
So pretty and neat with long black hair,
Dressed in silks so fine,
She smiled at me and waved her hand,
And her jade green eyes did shine. (CHO)

So I climbed aboard and off we rolled,
Through the shadows of the night;
Till we fetched up to her compound gate,
Gleaming in the pale moonlight.
She pulled the cord and a gong did sound,
The dragon gate swung wide;
She took my hand and led me on
To her chamber deep inside. (CHO)

She brought me a glass of samshu wine,
And smiled at me again;
She knelt beside me on the mat
And my head began to spin;
Now when I awoke, late next morn,
My head was still aflame;
I was lying naked on the quay,
Bruised and in great pain. (CHO)

So heed my warning, one and all,
If you're cruising Singapore,
Don't cha spend your nights with the rick-sha girls,
They'll rock and roll you sure;
Don't cha spend your nights with the rick-sha girls,
Don't cruise Old Singapore,
But get married, lads, and settle down,
And go to sea no more,
And go to sea no more!

"Samshu," according to Stan Hugill, is a Chinese bean-wine, very fiery and potent.

And here's a link to a MP3 sample: http://www.charlieipcar.com/lyrics/drink_men.htm

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Greg B
Date: 16 Feb 12 - 04:56 PM

My old pal and band-mate Skip Henderson has written some dandy ditties as well as having put the Sailor's and Fisher's Hornpipes together in such a fashion as to be given the final music credit on "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" (think of the bar-fight scene).

I want also to give a nod to Stan Rogers' "White Squall." One of those songs that really evokes the visual imagination as the story unfolds.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Feb 12 - 05:00 PM

fastnet old fastnet, C FoxSmith, tuneRMileshttps://sites.google.com/site/thefastnetmaritimeandfolkfest/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqmLNHqYuKo

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 16 Feb 12 - 05:34 PM

Re Edmond Fitzgerald..I keep coming upon the name in my genealogy "research" of Irish families in NE Iowa...lots of Fitzgeralds from Dingle area..I know the ship was named after the father of the banker? Insurance agent? Some financial man..does anyone know the history of this Fitzgerald and from whence he came? mg

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: sciencegeek
Date: 16 Feb 12 - 08:41 PM

mg,

This from wiki:
Northwestern named the boat after President and Chairman of the Board, Edmund Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald's grandfather had been a lake captain and his father owned the Milwaukee Drydock Company that built and repaired ships.[19] More than 15,000 people attended the Fitzgerald's christening and launch ceremony on June 7, 1958. The event was plagued by misfortune. When Elizabeth Fitzgerald, wife of Edmund Fitzgerald, tried to christen the boat by smashing a champagne bottle over the bow, it took her three attempts to break it. A delay of 36 minutes followed while the shipyard crew struggled to release the keel blocks. Upon sideways launch, the boat crashed violently into a pier.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: EBarnacle
Date: 17 Feb 12 - 02:42 PM

Shortly after Pride of Baltimore I went down, I wrote "The Loss of the Pride Of Baltimore" as a pumping chantey.

Here's the first verse and chorus:

o-oh have you heard the news, me Johnny,
Pride's gone down.
She went on down in a dead white squall,
Pride's gone down.

O-oh Prid's gone down, Me Johnny,
Pride's gone down;
Sh'll not come home to Baltimore,
Pride's gone down.

The first time I sang this in public was a a pub sing in Mystic, shortly after the event. I had trouble getting through the song because it choked me up and, apparently had the same effect on many of the others in the room. I don't drag it out often as it is too powerful.

Kendall, the melody of Ashes on the Sea sounds an awful lot like the melody of "Lorena." Is it based on that or just coincidence?

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,John Foxen
Date: 18 Feb 12 - 09:02 AM

To add to the list of women composers:
Sisters Unlimited have their wonderful Childbirth Shanty (No Bed of Roses) but it may be a little strong for the menfolk.
And Margaret Foxen co-wrote a song about one of Britain's greatest maritime heroes, John Darwin, who set off one day in his canoe from Seaton In Carew and absent-mindedly sailed all the way to Central America

Paddle Off To Panama

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: stallion
Date: 19 Feb 12 - 05:13 AM

Just read through this thread and can't believe that Linda Kelly's Sweet Minerva and Northern Tide are not mentioned, truth is that once you hear Hissyfit doing Sweet Minerva there is little else one can do with it, it is just wonderful, I have heard many people sing Northern Tide in many different styles and as far as I have heard no-one has murdered it.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Crane Driver
Date: 19 Feb 12 - 05:21 AM

The Shanty UK website now has a 'songwriters' section with new sea songs and shanties available as pdf files to download (by permission of the authors) and in some cases midi files. Not many writers yet, but submissions welcomed if your main concern is to get your songs known and sung.

Andrew

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,Badjelly
Date: 24 Nov 12 - 06:56 PM

Aw thanks. Also recorded 2010 by Portsmouth Shanty Men.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 24 Nov 12 - 09:16 PM

Davy Steele wrote Farewell to the Haven and Heave Ya Ho
Scott Murray - Guiding Light
John Watt - Shores of the Forth (not Matt Armour as a previous poster said)
Matt Armour - Generations of Change includes a verse about fishing
Fisherman's Wife was written by Ewan McColl to a traditional tune, as part of the "Singing the Fishing" Radio Ballads.
Allie Windwick from Orkney wrote several songs about the sea.
"Braw Sailing on the Sea" (not sure how old this is)

And just 2 days old this song, following a visit to Australia's Great Ocean Road I have written a song called "the Wreck of The Loch Ard". Add me to the female composers!
Will post lyrics later.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 24 Nov 12 - 09:38 PM

Oops, mea culpa, humble apologies. It WAS Matt Armour who wrote Shores of the Forth, although it is the title track of the album by John Watt and Davey Stewart! But John Watt was a prolific songwriter himself, and ( I'm pretty sure!) wrote a song about The Eyemouth disaster and Farewell to the Ferries (after the Forth Road Bridge was opened.)

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Alaska Mike
Date: 25 Nov 12 - 08:12 AM

I've written a number of nautical songs that people have enjoyed over the years. "Clippership", "First Kill", "Halibut", "Johnny Come and Do", "Little Jim", "Salmon Love", "Sailor's Lament", "Shenandoah Roll On Home", "Tiny Bit Of Heaven", "When Your Ship Comes In", and "Whiskey John". Traditional and contemporary nautical songs have always been a part of my set lists and I enjoy singing low harmonies whenever a chantey or forebitter rises in the circle.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE SONG OF EÄRENDIL (Tolkien)
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 28 Apr 13 - 12:19 AM

The following is originally a poem about Eärendil, a mariner in Tolkien's works who eventually became the "evening star", the planet Venus. The text is from The Fellowship Of The Ring It's been set to music by the Tolkien Ensemble.

Eärendil was a mariner
That tarried in Arvenien,
He built a boat of timber felled
In Nimbrethil to journey in.

Her sails he wove of silver fair,
Of silver were her lanterns made,
Her prow was fashioned like a swan,
and lights upon her banners laid.

In panoply of ancient kings,
In chainéd rings he armoured him;
his shining shield was scored with runes
to ward all wounds and harm from him;
his bow was made of dragon-horn,
his arrows shorn of ebony;
of silver was his habergeon,
his scabbard of chalcedony;
his sword of steel was valiant,
of adamant his helmet tall,
an eagle-plume upon his crest,
upon his breast an emerald.

Beneath the Moon and under star
he wandered far from northern strands,
bewildered on enchanted ways
beyond the days of mortal lands.
From gnashing of the Narrow Ice
where shadow lies on frozen hills,
from nether heats and burning waste
he turned in haste, and roving still
on starless waters far astray
at last he came to Night of Naught,
and passed, and never sight he saw
of shining shore nor light he sought.
The winds of wrath came driving him,
and blindly in the foam he fled
from west to east and errandless,
unheralded he homeward sped.

There flying Elwing came to him,
and flame was in the darkness lit;
more bright than light of diamond
the fire on her carcanet.
The Silmaril she bound on him
and crowned him with the living light
and dauntless then with burning brow
he turned his prow; and in the night
from Otherworld beyond the Sea
there strong and free a storm arose,
a wind of power in Tarmenel;
by paths that seldom mortal goes
his boat it bore with biting breath
as might of death across the grey
and long forsaken seas distressed;
from east to west he passed away.

Through Evernight he back was borne
on black and roaring waves that ran
o'er leagues unlit and foundered shores
that drowned before the Days began,
until he heard on strands of pearl
where ends the world the music long,
where ever-foaming billows roll
the yellow gold and jewels wan.
He saw the Mountain silent rise
where twilight lies upon the knees
of Valinor, and Eldamar
beheld afar beyond the seas.
A wanderer escaped from night
to haven white he came at last,
to Elvenhome the green and fair
where keen the air, where pale as glass
beneath the Hill of Ilmarin
a-glimmer in a valley sheer
the lamplit towers of Tirion
are mirrored on the Shadowmere.

He tarried there from errantry,
and melodies they taught to him,
and sages old him marvels told,
and harps of gold they brought to him.
They clothed him then in elven-white,
and seven lights before him sent,
as through the Calacirian
to hidden land forlorn he went.
He came unto the timeless halls
where shining fall the countless years,
and endless reigns the Elder King
in Ilmarin on Mountain sheer;
and words unheard were spoken then
of folk and Men and Elven-kin,
beyond the world were visions showed
forbid to those that dwell therein.

A ship then new they built for him
of mithril and of elven-glass
with shining prow; no shaven oar
nor sail she bore on silver mast:
the Silmaril as lantern light
and banner bright with living flame
to gleam thereon by Elbereth
herself was set, who thither came
and wings immortal made for him,
and laid on him undying doom,
to sail the shoreless skies and come
behind the Sun and light of Moon.

From Evereven's lofty hills
where softly silver fountains fall
his wings him bore, a wandering light,
beyond the mighty Mountain Wall.
From a World's End there he turned away,
and yearned again to find afar
his home through shadows journeying,
and burning as an island star
on high above the mists he came,
a distant flame before the Sun,
a wonder ere the waking dawn
where grey the Norland waters run.

And over Middle-earth he passed
and heard at last the weeping sore
of women and of elven-maids
in Elder Days, in years of yore.
But on him mighty doom was laid,
till Moon should fade, an orbéd star
to pass, and tarry never more
on Hither Shores where Mortals are;
for ever still a herald on
an errand that should never rest
to bear his shining lamp afar,
the Flammifer of Westernesse.

Song Of Eärendil on Tolkien Gateway

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: May Queen
Date: 30 Apr 13 - 05:01 PM

Dont think anyone has mentioned The Corncrake by Ian 'Nobby'Dye. It references my home town of Bristol and has been taken up by the Fishermen's Friends...lovely song.Written in the 70's I believe.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 22 Jul 13 - 04:55 AM

Helen North's 'Midshipman's Boast'. Hamish Currie has recorded his own arrangement of this but no one else has yet, as far as I know.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Old Grey Wolf
Date: 22 Jul 13 - 08:31 AM

Ode to Big Blue by Gordon Lightfoot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_63sELEmWlU

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 22 Jul 13 - 07:01 PM

To me the term new shanty is a bit of a contradiction - a shanty, ie a song made for a job of work must have by definition a cut-off up to the point when sailing vessels were used for commercial shipping as opposed to sail training. Anything after this can only be a sea song written in the idiom of a working song. Even in the days of cpommercial sailing vessels there were contempory songs gthat were used for work, particulalry pumping songs.

Probably a subject for another thread - the boundary between popular songs being used at sea, and popular songs being parodied/sailorised sufficiently to be classed as a bona-fide shanty.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Sailor Ron
Date: 23 Jul 13 - 05:40 AM

"popular songs being parodied....." this of course continued up to [at least] the 1970s, see the Merchant Navy Perma. thread.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 24 Jul 13 - 12:25 PM

Here's the song I wrote back last November, which I promised to post. Wrote my own tune to it, but haven't yet recorded it. Most of the background research was thanks to the Australian Government website, but I did find myself looking up "Shipping Times" and such-like!
I was drawn to the story, by the name of the ship, The Loch Ard, and found that she and many other "Loch Line" ships had been built on the Clyde in Scotland: the were the last of the sailing ships that still took the "long way round" to Australia even after the Suez canal had been opened.

THE LOCH ARD SHIPWRECK                           
Aka Ballad of Tom and Eva                        

She was built on the Clyde in 1873
A three-masted iron-hulled clipper was she,
Loch Ard she was named, of the famous Loch Line,
And she sailed for Melbourne with a cargo fine.
For four years more she would ply up and down
Carrying all the things they wanted in Melbourne town,
With hats, clocks, pianos, perfumes, linen, candles, spades
And sleepers for the railways that were then being laid.

Chorus
She sailed away, she sailed away,
Heading for Australia on a warm sunny day,
But what would be her fate, there were none could say,
As she ploughed the Southern Ocean.

Then in March '78 she sailed away again
With 37 passengers and 17 crewmen,
The passage was smooth till they reached the southern seas
By Victoria's Port Campbell all was suddenly unease.
On the first day of June at the early hour of three
Loch Ard's Captain Gibbs no landmarks could he see,
Trapped in swirling fog, Otway lighthouse was not found,
And by Mutton Bird Island, the ship must surely ground.

Chorus

But when the fog lifted, the awful truth did dawn,
Those towering cliffs, far too close in early morn,
The Captain turned her round, and tried to steer away,
But her sails would not fill, she was stuck there in the bay.
He tried to drop the anchor, but in sand it would not hold,
The ship's bow pulled round, and her fate would soon be told,
Despite his desperate efforts there could be no relief,
Loch Ard's death knell pealed as she smashed up on a reef.

Chorus

The top deck parted from the hull, the masts crashed down as well,
One lifeboat was launched but capsized in the swell,
The waves swept o'er the ship, screaming people in the foam,
And those who stayed below the decks would soon be "going home".
But young Eva Carmichael was clinging to a beam,
After 5 hours in the water, she should die it would seem,
But Tom Pearce came to the rescue, when Eva he did save,
Revived with brandy from the wreck, they sheltered in a cave.

Chorus

When Tom went for help, the cliffs he had to scale,
He followed horses' footprints along a muddy trail,
Tom and Eva, sole survivors, you might think there'd be romance,
But Eva soon was homeward bound to Ireland, not a chance.
While Tom stayed in Australia, a hero he was made,
A tune was written for him although now so seldom played.
A medal for his bravery and money was donated,
He was the talk of Melbourne Town, by one and all was feted.

Chorus

In salvaging from the wreck, much treasure was there was found,
A precious Minton peacock to the museum would be bound.
But after you have been there, you still should go and view
Those deadly cliffs that claimed so many lives, spared so few.
More than 50 ships foundered upon this treacherous coast,
The Loch Line out of 25 may have lost the most,
The inlet where young Tom and Eva stumbled back on shore
Is named the Loch Ard Gorge, and will be so evermore.

Chorus
She sailed away, she sailed away,
Heading for Australia on a warm sunny day,
But what would be her fate, you now have heard me say,
As she ploughed the Southern Ocean.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: sciencegeek
Date: 25 Jul 13 - 06:26 PM

For He Who Was Lost

And the sea is kind and the sea is cruel,
The sea is as the sea will be,
But if the sea is cruel or kind,
It means nothing to the sea ,

The wind was blowing a force six gale,
As the waves swept down the starboard side,
And they knocked me to the slickened deck,
And took me on a watery ride.

And I thrashed for fifty feet or more,
Between the cabin and the rails,
Till it threw me to a bottom line,
And to hold on fast I did prevail.

And I walked the lifeline hand o'hand,
As the ship, it fell and rose,
Till I reached the hatch behind the break,
Went below to eat and dry my clothes.

And the sea is kind and the sea is cruel,
The sea is as the sea will be,
But if the sea is cruel or kind,
It means nothing to the sea.


The kid was on the port side forward,
To lash down and stow the gear,
As the bow went down the wave came o'r,
And cast him out into the sea.

The lookout cried and gave alarm,
Loud and long did cry he,
As the ship on its heels like a stallion turned,
And came about into the sea.

And the swell crests glistened in the sun,
And the troughs were dark, as dark could be,
Twenty-five feet we rose and fell,
As we pitched and rolled in a beaming sea.

A plane was from Bermuda sent,
Its engines droned in the evening's gray,
As the night came in with its darkening shroud,
We resumed our course and went on our way.

And the sea is kind and the sea is cruel,
The sea is as the sea will be,
But if the sea is cruel or kind,
It means nothing to the sea.

A collection, it was taken up,
To send back to his family,
But thirty-four dollars was all t'was got,
For the boy lost out in the sea.

And the sea is kind and the sea is cruel,
The sea is as the sea will be,
But if the sea is cruel or kind,
It means nothing to the sea.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: sciencegeek
Date: 25 Jul 13 - 06:29 PM

sorry... lost the explanation for his song

It took 4 decades, but this was written by Mike about a young sailor lost overboard off their destroyer back in the late 1960's. Things like that don't leave you.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 25 Jul 13 - 09:07 PM

Song I wrote on the loss of the tall ship Bounty during the great hurricane...
Bounty, Sail Away

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: sciencegeek
Date: 26 Jul 13 - 11:05 AM

"To me the term new shanty is a bit of a contradiction - a shanty, ie a song made for a job of work must have by definition a cut-off up to the point when sailing vessels were used for commercial shipping as opposed to sail training. Anything after this can only be a sea song written in the idiom of a working song. Even in the days of cpommercial sailing vessels there were contempory songs gthat were used for work, particulalry pumping songs.

Probably a subject for another thread - the boundary between popular songs being used at sea, and popular songs being parodied/sailorised sufficiently to be classed as a bona-fide shanty."

My feelings are that shanties served a purpose... a work shanty had a meter that served the job at hand.. and a foc's'le shanty served to while away time for the crew. Once the jobs/work changed at sea with new technology, traditional shanties should have died out... and almost did.

BUT... songs that were once restricted to shipboard and maybe sailortown because they were too rough, vulgar and common for landman's society still lived on with those who sang them .. and listened to them.

An often overlooked feature of shanties is that they were singable... very singable. They had to be to do the job of bringing things together in unison. Tunes & lyrics were taken from many sources and fashioned together for a new purpose onbaord ship - and that practice seems to have gone on after the age of sail and moved to the land as well.

A waltz can be played and danced to in a grand ballroom... or in a living room. Or just played for the enjoyment of listeners. New waltzes are being written today, though very rarely danced to. Does this make them less a waltz?

Perhaps we should refer to some as traditional - meaning they were originally used during a defined period- and others as contemporary or whatever for those that have the correct meter & "feel" of a shanty and could be used for the original purpose if needed. I see shanties still serving a purpose... just one rather different than that originally needed.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,Daniel
Date: 26 Jul 13 - 12:03 PM

Not everyone's cup of tea, of course, but I've always thought that Steve Knightley's 'I'll Haunt You' is an interesting song. And Seth Lakeman's 'Solomon Brown' about the Pennlee lifeboat disaster is a good one.

And if we're talking about Stan Rogers, his Flowers of Bermuda is such a good song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVUei-0WYC4

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,celtaddict
Date: 03 Aug 19 - 04:19 PM

Hi, all, I find a couple of references to a Birkenhead Drill, and am familiar with the meaning (the women and children first practice) and the Kipling poem Soldiers and Sailors Too, but I have not found the song itself. Can anyone help me out?

Also, it gladdens my heart to see how many on this (older) thread are people I now know in the flesh!

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Bruce D
Date: 05 Aug 19 - 08:37 AM

Cyril Tawney and Stan Rogers, are proberly the two best of writers of Nautical songs in recent decades. I've found that Tom Lewis while he has writern lots of songs,isn't to the same standard of Cyril and Stan.


Bruce D

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Charley Noble
Date: 06 Aug 19 - 04:58 PM

Celtaddict-

I guess I'll have to transcribe Ken Stephen's "Birkenhead Drill" myself. I can't seem to find it anywhere. I have a hand-written copy from Ken that he gave me in 1991 which I treasure.

Charlie Ipcar

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 06 Aug 19 - 05:17 PM

Nights Like This, written by Jim Hancock of Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire.
Recorded by Clarty Sough - Jim Hancock and Geoff Convery.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,Dean Calin
Date: 22 Sep 19 - 01:11 AM

Gina Dalby and Christy Dalby from Bounding Main together wrote "Pass the Mug." Gina wrote and excellent piece, "Roll Call," that honors the many lost ships of the Great Lakes.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Sep 19 - 06:21 AM

BEST ONE I'VE HEARD TO DATE
The authentic use of the interview with Ben Bright lifts it above all the others, in my opinion
Phil Colclough wrote a good song entitled 'Leaving of London' based on his experiences as a merchant seaman
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,Julia L
Date: 22 Sep 19 - 07:21 AM

CAPPY JOHN'S BRIDE ©1996 Fred Gosbee BMI Castlebay Music

Now a skipper that we know who was famous long ago
Was looking for a ship as his was run aground
Though it was sometimes stated 'twas the way he navigated
Ol' Cappy John was rated as the finest man around

Now there was a ship nearby that he wanted for to try
It belonged to Ned McKenzie and was called the Mary Beale
But old John was shy of girls and the place was full of curls
And he didn't have the nerve to go up and make his deal

She carries her bow high and her stern is nice and round
It's easy to hold her when she's sheeted down
She is my heart's desire and all that I require
Is that you let me try her when I come to town

Now the mate, whose name was Dan,
Up and says to the old man
“I can sound McKenzie out and then clear away the girls
I will see that it's alright if you want to go tonight
For that ship she is a sight, she's the best in all the world”

So Dan goes to McKenzie but somehow in all the frenzy
There was some misunderstanding
And he got the message wrong
Or perhaps the silly goomer had a twisted sense of humor
But when Cappy came to view her he was singing this song

McKenzie shook his hand and he says “I understand
that you want to take my Mary away from me
Now before with you I send her I must tell you she is tender
Which I'll thank you to remember when you take her out to sea”

So John says “Dan must have told that I want to fill her hold;
With a belly full of cargo I know she'll handle fine
I promise not to break her and if ever I forsake her ,
Then I know the mate will take her for he's a friend of mine”

Says McKenzie “Are you mad? for you talk just like a cad
To throw my Mary over like some trollop in Rangoon
She isn't just some fun thing (though I might permit some bundling)
But I will tell you one thing, you must make your offer soon”

Says John “I can't commit , until one thing you permit      
You must let me roll her over on the sand beside the bay
I will have my men inspect her and still I may reject her
If her bottom is neglected or has started to decay”

Says McKenzie “I can't stand it ; you are worse than any bandit
Since the two of you have planned it
‘tis yourselves that should begin”
He called Mary from the kitchen :Cappy John he started twitchin'
But the girl she was bewitchin' and she smiled as she came in

Now the mate, he oiled the water,
And the skipper got the daughter
He's as happy as an otter with his dear and blushing bride
Though it seemed a bright invention
He'd the good sense not to mention
That it wasn't his intention,
AND HE GOT THE SHIP BESIDES!

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jan 21 - 11:16 AM

Rudy Sunde wrote many a great sea song, other than Auckland to the Bluff.
I've bern looking for the lyrics to The Ocean Queen, without any luck so far. I've cobbled most of them together by the stop n go method of listening to them and then writing them down. Does anybody here have them?

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 25 Jan 21 - 07:35 PM

Guest, you might do better putting your request up as a new thread, Lyric Request. Also why not join Mudcat as a non-guest?

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 26 Jan 21 - 06:54 AM

The Pole Star / To the tune of The Man in the Moon

I'll sing you a story, a song of the sea, I'll tell it just like the man told it to me
Though some may deny it, the odd one or two, I swear, cross my heart, that the story is true

Pole Star was laid down on the banks of the Clyde. At her launch, the men cheered as they looked on in pride
A barque with four masts and a hull built for speed, Captain Black looked up at her, a proud man indeed

Chorus; Captain Black was the master, the man in command
Of the Pole Star. He cried, I'm the luckiest man!

A crowd lined the quay as Pole Star sailed away, For Melbourne, the port sailors call Hobson's Bay
Next on to Calcutta to load jute and then, Pole Star turned towards London to sail home again

She rounded the Cape on a wild stormy day And then a huge wave washed the captain away
Even he was surprised when the next wave proved kind Dumping him on the deck of the tall ship behind

Chorus        

He said, I've dropped in from the ship called Pole Star. Are you bound for London? They said, Yes, we are
And sixty days later he stepped ashore there But he couldn't see Pole Star tied up anywhere

He stood on the quayside as Pole Star arrived. It must be the ghost of the captain! they cried
He's come back to haunt us from sea and from foam. No, it's me, laughed the captain, I simply swam home!

Chorus

This is, I believe, an exaggerated account of the maiden voyage of the Loch Torridon in 1882.

http://www.thelochlong.info/Loch_Torridon.htm The first master of the Loch Torridon was Captain Pinder. She loaded a heavy cargo for Melbourne, arriving at Hobson's Bay 105 days out, which did not give a good indication of her sailing capabilities. She then went to Calcutta with a cargo of horses. On August 22nd, 1882, she left Calcutta with a cargo of jute. All went well until off the Cape, were Captain Pinder made a mistake while sailing in a heavy W.N.W. gale. Although the mate begged the Captain not to set the foresail before he put his helm up, Captain Pinder was determined to risk it, having got away with it once before. When he tried the wear the ship around to the starboard tack she got off before the wind and there was not enough way on her. As a result, a tremendous sea broke over her poop and carried Captain Pinder, the 2nd mate, man at the wheel, sailmaker, and a boy overboard. The mate was also swept away, but was saved when a turn of the main-brace held him by the leg. The men overboard could not be rescued in such a sea and were never seen again, the mate bringing the ship home.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 27 Jan 21 - 01:09 PM

The Sailor's Stone stands beside the old Portsmouth Road climbing over Hindhead in the Surrey Hills, now landscaped following the construction of Hindhead Tunnel. It bears the inscription;

ERECTED
In detestation of a barbarous Murder
Committed here on an unknown Sailor
On Sep, 24th 1786
By Edwd. Lonegon, Mich. Casey & Jas. Marshall
Who were all taken the same day
And hung in Chains near this place
Whoso sheddeth Man's Blood
by Man shall his Blood be shed.

The Unknown Sailor
sung to the tune of 'The Calico Printer's Clerk' written by Dave Moran of The Halliard
after The Halliard (Dave Moran, Nic Jones and Nigel Paterson) discovered the song in the Harkness Collection of broadsides in the Harris Library, Preston.

From his home in London
An Able Seaman strode
Back to his ship he made his trip
Upon the Portsmouth Road
At the village inn in Thursley
He stopped to buy a round
And there three men he did befriend
They too were Portsmouth bound

Chorus; As you travel on life's journey
             You'll meet your fellow man
             But take great care for while you share
             Others take what they can

On the lonely climb up Hindhead
Those men made their attack
And with a knife they took his life
And made off with his pack
Now those cut-throats hang in irons
On the top of Gibbet Hill
To show us all what will befall
Those who treat others ill

Chorus

A stone stands by the wayside
To mark where he was killed
All travellers know no grass will grow
Where that red blood was spilled
In quiet Thursley churchyard
The unknown sailor sleeps
His kin still yearn for his return
From sailing on the deep

Chorus

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 27 Jan 21 - 02:44 PM

New song Pole Star - see two posts earlier.

On second thoughts, this should go to the tune of The Creggan White Hare.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 28 Jan 21 - 09:39 AM

Many posts above mention Linda Kelly's The luckiest Sailor and you can listen to it on the Yorkshire Garland site here:
http://www.yorkshirefolksong.net/song.cfm?songID=92

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 29 Jan 21 - 07:18 PM

THE RISE OF THE SHANTIES – NEW BOOK 'SAILOR SONG' Review by Alex Gallacher 21 January, 2021 folkradio

The British Library has announced the publication of Sailor Song – The Shanties and Ballads of the High Seas by Gerry Smyth, a Professor of Irish Cultural History of Liverpool John Moores University. Originally planned for publication in April, the publication date has been brought forward to today.

Prof Gerry Smyth; I was born and grew up in Dublin. After working in Spain for five years as a professional musician, I moved to Liverpool in 1986 where I took a degree in 'Literature, Life and Thought' at the Polytechnic, before going on to do an MA in Cultural Studies at the University of Lancaster, and a PhD at the University of Stafford.

I combine my academic and pedagogic interests with various musical and theatrical activities. I have research interests in Irish literary history, James Joyce, modernism, music and literature, posthumanism and ecocriticism, and would welcome inquiries for doctoral research in any of these areas.

Wikipedia; Under the name Gerry McGowan, Smyth has released a number of albums of progressive folk music: The Colour Tree (2003), riverrun (2005), and The Usual Story (2008). He has also recorded and released three albums of Liverpool-related shanties: Roll & Go: Songs of Liverpool and the Sea (2009); Across the Western Ocean (2011) - this being a compilation of songs by various musicians from Merseyside performing shanties and ballads associated with Liverpool in aid of the Royal National Lifeboat Institute station in Hoylake, Merseyside; and Sailor Song (2017), with Wallasey-based folk group Reckless Elbow.

He now runs the LJMU shanty choir, Anti-Shanty, who have performed at the Liverpool River Festival and at the Launch of the LJMU Institute for Literacy and Cultural History at Tate Liverpool on the city's Albert Dock.
Smyth has since been commissioned by the British Library to write a book on the shanty entitled Sailor Song, due for publication under the library's commercial imprint in 2020.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 30 Jan 21 - 03:47 AM

Another vote for Andrew's "Dead reckoning".

Also has nobody mentioned "Icy acres"?

Robin

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 02 May 21 - 07:12 AM

Haul for Glasson! Tune; Farewell to Tarwathie/Green Bushes/The Waggoner's Lad/Farewell Angelina

Home to dear England Our ship she is bound
And in heaving the lead We'll soon strike English ground
What pleasure we have With what joy cry the men
When we come into sight Of old England again

Chorus (Repeat second part of tune)
And we call, Haul for Glasson! Through sea-spray and foam
Yes, we all haul for Glasson As we come sailing home

We wait in Lune Deep Then sail up with the tide
John Lamb will be ready Dock gates open wide
By Cockersand light And then past Plover Scar
Every family awaits The return of their tar

Chorus

Now our ship she's inside Of John Lamb's parlour doors
Up to the Pier Hall We must go, to be sure
For there our dear girls Come from town in great style
To welcome us home With embraces and smiles

Chorus

Adapted and extended from the memories recalled by Ruth Zanoni Roskell in Glimpses of Glasson Dock, Landy Publishing 2005. Glasson Dock was built in 1787 at the mouth of the River Lune to serve Lancaster. Lancaster was the fourth most important port in the UK for the slave trade. It still has a regular service to the Isle of Man. John Lamb was the first dock gate man; the dock gates were called John Lamb's parlour doors. Cockersand and Plover Scar lighthouses were built in 1847. The Pier Hall, later The Caribou, was built in the 1780s and survives as private apartments. Henry Peacock

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Calico Jenny
Date: 03 May 21 - 12:47 PM

Thanks for adding Twiddles to your illustrious list, but gee . . . I sure hope that's not the song Janie Meneely is "remembered" for. There are so many others.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,Patrick
Date: 04 May 21 - 05:42 PM

Tin Bath Sailor by John Oke Bartlett. 16 Original self-penned new sea songs. Accompanied by Portsmouth Shantymen on most tracks.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 16 Sep 21 - 07:41 AM

Tiger Bay; set to the tune of The Lakes of Shilin/The Banks of the Bann/Shane (Lord of All Hopefulness)

Well, we sail through the day and we sail through the night
And we give a loud cheer when land comes into sight
If there’s peril at sea, then there’s pleasure ashore
Where the pretty girls beckon from every door

Now Jack sits in a tavern, happy as he can be
With a glass in his hand and a girl on his knee
Buy us one more, Jack, and sing us a song
Alas, cries poor Jack, All my money is gone

Then give me your jacket, I’ll pawn it for you
To buy you a drink, that’s the least I can do
Take off your waistcoat and hand it to me
To pay for a sailor who’s out on a spree

I shall have all your clothes when this evening is through
And if I could sell it, I’d take your skin too
With claws like a tigress, she strips poor Jack bare
And without a glance backward leaves Jack lying there

Now in the cold morning, Jack wakes in the street
No shirt on his back and no boots on his feet
And back to his ship he must make his sad way
For the sea is much safer than wild Tiger Bay

Henry Peacock

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 18 Sep 21 - 06:05 PM

Wild Tiger Bay above - amended final verses;

Now in the cold morning, Jack wakes in the street
No shirt on his back and no boots on his feet
He set out so grandly but now he must crawl
Back to his ship wearing nothing at all

Far out at sea he will face the great gales
Out on the yard-arm to take in the sails
The wind and the waves may well sweep him away
But he's still safer there than in wild Tiger Bay

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Daniel Kelly
Date: 18 Sep 21 - 10:35 PM

It being ‘talk like a pirate day’, I will add my own piece of nonsense here.

And also recommend several great nautical songs by John Warner:
- Batavia
- Pack of Pirates (kids)

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 29 Oct 21 - 06:10 PM

Within the sheets of three music books in the Museum of London’s library, previously owned by Lady Emma Hamilton, lay several unknown songs dedicated to her lover Lord Nelson’s naval victories. It’s among these that several scores — one sea shanty, another cantata and two hymns — dedicated to Lord Nelson’s naval victories lay hidden from public knowledge for over 200 years.

With grog and Nelson both together
We'll drink and conquer in all weather

11 December 2021 Join us at the Museum of London Docklands for a unique musical performance, in partnership with the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. For one night only, we will bring to life songs dedicated to Horatio Nelson’s naval victories, recently rediscovered in Emma Hamilton’s songbooks by museum Librarian Lluis Tembleque.

Lluis will kick off the evening with a presentation on his finds and their historical context, and Dr Christopher Suckling, Head of Historical Performance at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, will give an insight onto the music world at the beginning of the 19th century.

After the talks, performers from the School will play the four rediscovered pieces, along with a number of other relevant scores, then Lluis will show items from our collections connected to Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson - all in the immersive surroundings of the Museum of London Docklands.

Songs for Lord Nelson

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 30 Oct 21 - 04:53 AM

For new sea songs you would do well to check out John Oke Bartlett's Tin Bath Sailor c.d.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 30 Oct 21 - 04:10 PM

Henry
How can any of this art music have any vague resemblance to any chanty? The 2 genres could not be any more opposite in their form and style, apart from the time differences.

That crap rag The Times actually presented them as a collection of 'shanties'. Sheesh!!!!

I do hope Dr. Chris doesn't use the word 'shanty'. He's going to look remarkably silly if he does.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 30 Oct 21 - 06:55 PM

Songs for Nelson; Thursday World at One

There's an interview with a little more description here, after 40 minutes. I think he describes it as a precursor to the shanty, with a suggestion of the rhythm that would come later.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 31 Oct 21 - 07:27 AM

And from The Guardian 28 October 2021 Nadia Khomami Arts and culture correspondent;

Alongside the piece by Kelly, which was performed at the Theatre Drury Lane at the time, there is also a completely unknown score written by William Douglas, 4th Duke of Queensberry, a landowner and society figure whose gambling overshadowed his musical skills, until now.

There is music for a sea shanty tribute to Nelson, whose lyrics have been known about since a letter from Nelson to William Douglas was sold at auction in 2013. It’s now clear the duke had added music and a chorus to words transcribed by Nelson after he heard his crew chant the song in the aftermath of victory at Cape St Vincent in 1797.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 31 Oct 21 - 03:33 PM

Hi Henry could you please post some of the lyrics to this supposed embryonic chanty? I'm sure I don't need to remind you that chanties evolved some time after 1830 from the practices of African Americans in the Gulf area and weren't in use aboard merchant ships until the 1840s when they were specifically work songs of the common seamen. They were never in use aboard RN vessels of the line.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 31 Oct 21 - 06:52 PM

Steve, the first I heard about this was the Christopher Suckling interview on World at One on Thursday. (Nelson's mother's maiden name was Suckling too.) He said that Nelson heard a chant by his crew after the victory in the Battle of Cape St Vincent on 16 January 1780, during the American War of Independence. It's not stated whether he heard it as a work chant or in another setting, a celebration perhaps. He wrote it out and sent it to William Douglas, 4th Duke of Queensbury, who "domesticated" it for Nelson's household, added a bass line and an instrumental introduction, and changed it to a "more refined" soprano melody.

With grog and Nelson both together
We'll drink and conquer in all weather

Christopher Suckling sang this chorus which, according to the Guardian report, Douglas added too. The photographs of the hand-written manuscript on the Museum of London site show the chorus and 2nd and 3rd verses, but not the first - and presumably original - verse. Suckling does say that, in the 18th century, there would not have been chanteys, but maritime work chants would have brought rhythm to repetitive work.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Nov 21 - 11:30 AM

Thanks for that, Henry.

Suckling then had no knowledge of the navy. 'maritime work chants' of any description would not have been tolerated. They were certainly not needed with more than sufficient manpower to complete every task in silence, such was the order. The only accompaniment allowed was, where available, a musician to accompany the rhythm of the capstan work. even when chanties came in in the 1840s they were not allowed or needed on RN vessels.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 01 Nov 21 - 02:12 PM

Can I recommend a brand new CD called "Sense of the Place" which has 10 tracks, all to do with the sea in one way or another, and produced and commissioned for Stonehaven Folk Club as a lockdown project.
All brand new songs, and produced by Mike Vass. Track list and songwriters as follows:
1. Lady Finella   Iona Fyfe
2. Keeper of the Light   Claire Hastings
3. Catterline   Kris Drever
4. Boat Memories Mike Blackburn
5. Violet Rae   Jenny Sturgeon
6. The Snowdrop   Findlay Napier
7. Cutty Sark    Bob Knight
8. The Sands o' St Cyrus    Steve Byrne
9. Calloused Hands   Irene Watt
10. Far from Home Paul McKenna
Find out more here: Sense of the Place

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Nov 21 - 05:48 PM

Lots of new sea songs, texts and backgrounds, and albums available at
sparehands.org
Lots of older songs as well. Mainly whaling and trawling.
A few chanties. Various videos on Youtube.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Nov 21 - 04:19 AM

Scols Bridle have written some new sea songs from the point of view of women

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 15 Nov 21 - 09:41 AM

Tuesday 30 Nov 2021 11:30 BBC RADIO 4 Shaking Up the Shanty

The musical duo The Rheingans Sisters compose a contemporary sea shanty for an unusual cargo boat that has ditched diesel in favour of sails.

De Gallant borrows technology from the past to sail toward a more sustainable future and so it seems fitting that the musical duo The Rheingans Sisters should write a song that borrows from traditional shanties to create a contemporary song that sings of the boat’s progressive journey.

They set off to understand the shanty genre by speaking to Gerry Smyth, a shanty expert based at Liverpool John Moores University, but then decide to break all the rules!

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Nov 21 - 10:37 AM

There need only be one rule. If it's not a chanty don't call it a chanty. Sea song, or song about the sea works fine. If it's an imitation chanty then call it that.

Subject: RE: 'New' Sea Songs & Shanties & Nautical Songs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 28 Dec 21 - 10:53 AM

Sunday 2 January 00:15 ie just after midnight on Saturday 1 January BBC RADIO 4 Shaking Up the Shanty repeat

The musical duo The Rheingans Sisters compose a contemporary sea shanty for an unusual cargo boat that has ditched diesel in favour of sails. De Gallant borrows technology from the past to sail toward a more sustainable future and so it seems fitting that the musical duo The Rheingans Sisters should write a song that borrows from traditional shanties to create a contemporary song that sings of the boat’s progressive journey. They set off to understand the shanty genre by speaking to Gerry Smyth, a shanty expert based at Liverpool John Moores University, but then decide to break all the rules!

In Sailor Song: The Shanties and Ballads of the High Seas acclaimed writer, playwright and musician Gerry Smyth presents the words and music of some 40 ‘heaving or hauling’ working shanties and 10 off-duty sea songs and ballads. The meanings and history of each song is revealed alongside thematic sections exploring celebrated shantymen, song types and traditions as well as the influence these songs have had on the folk music movement, rock music and the modern shanty revival. The volume is illustrated with specially commissioned artworks by popular folk artist Jonny Hannah alongside many previously unpublished artworks from the holdings of the British Library.