Lyr Add: Way Down in Tennessee, Chantey

Subject: Lyr Add: Way Down in Tennessee, Chantey
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 05 Aug 12 - 12:44 PM

Lyr. Add: Way Down in Tennessee
Coll. Wm. H. Smith, Nova Scotia

1
Farewell you girls of this cold countree;
Farewell you girls of this cold countree;
Farewell you girls of this cold countree;
I'm bound for Tennessee.

Chorus:
Away over the ocean;
Away over the ocean;
Away over the ocean;
Way down in Tennessee.

Oh Tennessee is a-rolling;
Tennessee is a-rolling;
Tennessee is a-rolling;
Way down in Tennessee.

2
I can no longer stay with you;
I can no longer stay with you;
I can no longer stay with you;
For I'm bound for Tennessee.
3
I left my wife with a baby;
I left my wife with a baby;
I left my wife with a baby;
Way down in Tennessee.

Sung by Liverpool, Nova Scotia sailormen. "The pattern is unusual for a shanty. It resembles that of "What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor?""

Wm. H. Smith Collection, chanties sung aboard vessels out of Liverpool, Nova Scotia in the '70s, '80s and 90s, ..." Words taken down ... by his son, T. Brenton Smith, 1940, the typescript in Dalhousie University Archives, "Chanties and Other Songs of the Sea.". William Smith (1867-1955) worked aboard the Brigantine Hyaline and other windjammers carrying lumber and fish to the Caribbean and South America, later worked as a carpenter and rigger in Liverpool N. S. shipyards.

The song has some resemblance to "Way Down in Shawneetown," a river chantey.
P. 23, Edit. Edith Fowke, 1981, Sea Songs and Ballads from Nineteenth Century Nova Scotia: the William H. Smith and Fenwick Hatt Manuscripts. Folklorica.