'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."