Films with sea music

12 Mar 09 - 12:56 PM (#2587259)
Subject: Films with sea music
From: albones

I am writing a little piece about sea music and am interested in recent films that have had chanteys or forebitters in them.

I know "Master and Commander..." what else have you noticed?

Thank you for your input,
Allison

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12 Mar 09 - 01:05 PM (#2587269)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Fred McCormick

I suppose the obvious one is Moby Dick, which had Bert Lloyd as the ship's shantyman singing Blood Red Roses.

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12 Mar 09 - 01:10 PM (#2587277)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Fred McCormick

Also, check Whaler out of New Bedford, which was a film of a tapestry which depicted an entire whaling voyage, with songs by Ewan MacColl and Bert Lloyd. Folkways issued the entire soundtrack as an LP..

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12 Mar 09 - 01:32 PM (#2587289)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Abdul The Bul Bul

Oh Spencer Tracy in the first Captains Courageous is a beaut.
Ho little fishes, don't cry, don't cry.
Brings me a tear tho, every time.

Al

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12 Mar 09 - 01:34 PM (#2587292)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Abdul The Bul Bul

Oops, jumped in without reading agin. It's not a chantey or a forbitter.

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12 Mar 09 - 01:58 PM (#2587307)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Gibb Sahib

I've posted up all the scenes from "Moby Dick" with chanteys, if that's any help.


HERE

HERE

HERE

and HERE

Also, the chanteys in "Roots" (it has been edited), HERE

The details of what all is being sung are in the descriptions of the vids.

Also, in "Great Expectations" (I believe the 1946 version) you can hear "Sally Brown" being sung on a vessel in port at night.

Gibb

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12 Mar 09 - 01:59 PM (#2587309)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Gibb Sahib

Whoops, I just noticed you said "recent films."

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12 Mar 09 - 02:38 PM (#2587333)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Fred McCormick

This is hardly a recent film but The Curse of the Cat People, 1944 has a snatch of a house servant singing Reuben Ranzo.

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12 Mar 09 - 02:40 PM (#2587336)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: greg stephens

What was it that Humphrey Boagarty sang in African Queen? Can't remember, but I think it was a seasong (not a very recent film though!)

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12 Mar 09 - 02:46 PM (#2587341)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: curmudgeon

In "The Phantom Ship," 1935 w. Bela Lugosi, there's a mate who sings sea songs and shanties with his piano accordian.

It's been about 20 years since I saw it, but do remember "Johnny Come Down To Hilo."

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12 Mar 09 - 02:51 PM (#2587348)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Jack Blandiver

There's a Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes film with a surreal rendering of Drunken Sailor - Sherlock Holmes Faces Death perhaps? Based on The Musgrave Ritual and possibly the only Hollywood film ever to be set in Northumberland... In another Rathbone himself gives a sterling rendering of Oh, I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside but I don't suppose that counts.

What's a Forbitter anyway?

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12 Mar 09 - 03:06 PM (#2587360)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Rasener

Tom Waits did a song for the soundtrack to the 1989 Harold Becker film Sea of Love starring Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin, called ....

Sea Of Love

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12 Mar 09 - 03:16 PM (#2587368)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: SINSULL

Somebody must have sung something in Johnny Depp's Pirates of the Caribbean series. It led to a CD of "shanties".

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12 Mar 09 - 03:47 PM (#2587395)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Jim Carroll

Didn't John Tams do the sound track to 'The Bounty?'
Jim Carroll

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12 Mar 09 - 05:19 PM (#2587465)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: GUEST,.gargoyle

Unable to post with Mudcat Links so - here is a small list.

composer Herbert Stothart's use of a male chorus singing the traditional "Dead Man's Chest" song in the opening moments of the 1934 "Treasure Island."

"What Shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor?" was part of the score of Burt Lancaster's 1952 swashbuckler, "The Crimson Pirate."

Errol Flynn's privateers burst into song ("Strike for the Shores of Dover!") in Erich Wolfgang Korngold's score for 1940's "The Sea Hawk,"

Tyrone Power was heralded at the start of 1942's "The Black Swan" by Alfred Newman by "Heave Ho! Lubbers Avast! Mates Ahoy!"

Cole Porter wrote an entire score for MGM's musical "The Pirate" (1948)

Disney's animated "Peter Pan" (1953) features Captain Hook's crew singing "A Pirate's Life"

Two Years Before the Mast

Sincerely
Gargoyle

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12 Mar 09 - 05:28 PM (#2587471)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: GUEST,.gargoyle

Ahhhh Haaa!

So - Links to previous threads is forbidden? Today?

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

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12 Mar 09 - 07:26 PM (#2587591)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: kendall

Hell Ship Blow the man down.

Bogart was singing bits of The bold Fisherman"

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13 Mar 09 - 10:08 AM (#2587947)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: albones

Sinisiter Supporter: forebitters are those songs sung in the fo'c'sle, the ballads, the tunes played by a foo foo band, that were not used as work songs.

Gargoyle: I had done a search, but didn't hit anything. Can you suggest a search string?

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13 Mar 09 - 10:13 AM (#2587951)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: SINSULL

Jaws - Spanish Ladies

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13 Mar 09 - 10:21 AM (#2587959)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Gibb Sahib

In BILLY BUD (1962) - "Hangin' Johnny"

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13 Mar 09 - 11:24 AM (#2588010)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Dave Hanson

Lots in ' Far From The Madding Crowd ' Hardy himself was a traditional fiddler, and Barry Dransfield played the fiddler in ' Mutiny on the Bounty '

Dave H

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13 Mar 09 - 11:25 AM (#2588012)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Dave Hanson

Feck !! forgot it said ' sea music '

Dave

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13 Mar 09 - 04:21 PM (#2588249)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: GUEST,Ken Brock

One of the early Cinerama movies was "Windjammer", with a score by Morton Gould. As he recorded orchestral arrangements of quite a few spirituals, I would be surprised if he did not use some shanty tunes in the film.

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14 Mar 09 - 01:08 AM (#2588535)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Gibb Sahib

Another oldie:

The Ghost Ship (1943), has "Blow the Man Down," "Home, Dearie, Home" and others.

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14 Mar 09 - 05:53 AM (#2588595)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: eddie1

Way back when, Cyril Tawney was staying with me during a Scottish tour. I told him I had recently been to see Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Conan The Barbarian" and along with it was a short documentary (the title of which escapes my befuddled mind) about a new nuclear submarine. On the soundtrack they used "A-cheering of the Queen" by Cyril.
During his daily phonecall to his wife, Rosemary, who looked after, and still does, his record sales and royalties, my recollections of the one side of the conversation went as follows:

"Eddie went to see "Conan The Barbarian" and the film along with it had "A-cheering of the Queen" on it!

"No. "Conan The Barbarian"

"No, CONAN, not Cohen. Arnold Schwarzenegger ain't Jewish!"

Eddie

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14 Mar 09 - 08:55 AM (#2588666)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: GUEST,Ken Brock

More regarding the film Windjammer. I have seen the lp, but it is not handy. IIRC it had some tracks by Terry Gilkyson (perhaps with the Easy Riders - one of the few folk groups that had considerable commercial success between The Weavers and The Kingston Trio). Gilkyson also guested on the Weavers' "On Top of Old Smoky".

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15 Mar 09 - 01:18 PM (#2589410)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Gibb Sahib

I posted up the sea song scenes from GHOST SHIP, HERE

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24 Mar 09 - 12:41 PM (#2596233)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Gibb Sahib

Following up on Tom's post, I saw "Phantom Ship" recently. The songs in it were:

Whiskey Johnny
Can't Ye Dance the Polka?
Johnny Come Down to Hilo ("...RED dress on...")
Sally Brown

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25 Mar 09 - 10:18 AM (#2596946)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Jack Campin

There was some sort of strange mutated worksong that occurred repeatedly in Raul Ruiz's "Three Crowns for the Sailor" (1983) - since the crew were all dead and their main source of entertainment was pulling maggots out of their flesh it wasn't exactly what you'd hear at at a shanty festival.

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25 Mar 09 - 11:27 AM (#2597014)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: bubblyrat

There are,I seem to remember, some French "Shantys", in French of course,sung by the bow-hauling "Voyageurs" in "The Big Sky",with Kirk Douglas. In the Alec Guinness/ Dirk Bogarde film "HMS Defiant", some of the crew are seen dancing a sort of rapper-type clogging piece to the rather un-nautical fiddler's rendition of "The Gay Gordons" ( No comedians, please ).

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26 Mar 09 - 09:04 AM (#2597691)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Gibb Sahib

Somehow I forgot to mention GANGS OF NEW YORK, which has "New York Girls."
Here's the scene.

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26 Mar 09 - 09:30 AM (#2597710)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: GUEST,Henryp

The Good Hope was a play about the dangers faced by fishermen produced at the National Theatre in 2001-2002.

The words of All Clouds the Sky were written by John Tams specially, and before their tune, "in order to persuade Trevor Nunn to put the play on."

All clouds the sky
The boats are leaving
One last goodbye
Dark waters call us on...

The music as it was performed in the play was released on the EP CD titled "No.47", with this little suite perhaps the most powerful musical memory for those who saw the play. Subsequently it has been expanded and has become a feature of the Tams/Coope live show.

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26 Sep 10 - 02:30 AM (#2993813)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Gibb Sahib

From "Lonesome Dove," here is "Rise me up" /"Whiskey O" in a non-nautical context.

Lonesome Dove

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26 Sep 10 - 08:03 AM (#2993901)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Phil Cooper

Barry Dransfield did some of the music in "The Bounty."

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13 Aug 11 - 05:45 AM (#3207107)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Gibb Sahib

"Sally Brown" in GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946)

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13 Aug 11 - 07:47 AM (#3207154)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: GUEST,Don Meixner

Whale of a Tale from "20,000 Leagues under The Sea". Gordon Bok sings several of his own in the Movie "Coaster". There are a few in "Down to the Sea in Ships" tho' I can't recall what they were. "Oh What a Terrible Man" from Captain's Courageous.

D

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23 Aug 11 - 04:31 AM (#3211267)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Gibb Sahib

Chanties and tunes in MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1935)

Clips:
1. Melody of "Drunken Sailor" can be heard in the background
2. The chanty "Goodbye, fare you well" at the capstan, with the naval song "Rule Britannia" later in the clip.
3. The chanty "Hanging Johnny" is sung while rowing
4. A made-for-the-screen chantey, "Yo ho!...", followed by Rule Britannia again.

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23 Aug 11 - 04:53 AM (#3211272)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: bubblyrat

Of course, Thomas Hardy could have written " Far From The Maddling Crowd " , a "MADDL" being a" Mirror Assisted Dummy Deck Landing" and thus quite nautical !

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23 Aug 11 - 07:49 PM (#3211731)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Charley Noble

Then there was "Captain's Paradise," one of my favorite vintage films but unfortunately there were only a cabaret song or two.

Charley Noble

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24 Aug 11 - 04:30 AM (#3211877)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Gibb Sahib

Chantey tune in TREASURE ISLAND (1950)

"Johnny Come Down to Hilo" appears in instrumental form.

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24 Aug 11 - 01:26 PM (#3212088)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Gibb Sahib

In TREASURE ISLAND (1934)

"Goodbye Fare You Well"
"Hilo Somebody" (Hilo Boys)

I was tipped off by this thread!
Two Shanties in 'Treasure Island' (1934)

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28 Aug 11 - 03:08 AM (#3213837)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Gibb Sahib

"Hanging Johnny" in BILLY BUDD (1962)

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07 Jan 12 - 10:53 PM (#3286835)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Gibb Sahib

The 2006 Icelandic film "Myrin" ("Jar City") has a rendition of "Hullabaloo Belay" in the score. It's not sung in English--presumably in Icelandic?

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07 Jan 12 - 11:33 PM (#3286845)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: GUEST,Guest frpm Sanity

This piece actually captures the surf..waves crashing against the rocks, water trickling down the rocks as the water goes back out...and later in the piece you catch the swells, as if you are out to sea. the tag ending is like arriving on a distant shore1..I know..it was written that way on purpose, from the very beginning!!

Sea Music

Regards, and Enjoy!

GfS

Hey, as long as someone brought it up.........

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08 Jan 12 - 09:51 PM (#3287308)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: GUEST,Salsa

A November Christmas has the Wild Goose Nation in it. It is sung like a ballad.

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04 Jun 12 - 11:38 PM (#3359391)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Gibb Sahib

Scenes from two of the later adaptations of Moby-Dick:

1998

2010

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22 Jul 12 - 11:04 PM (#3380163)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Gibb Sahib

Oddly enough, "Paddy West," as sung by Timothy Walsh, appears in Pasolini's directed version of The Canterbury Tales. They took it (and other songs in the film) from the The Folk Songs of Britain Volume 6: Sailormen and Servingmaids (1961).

It appears at the time mark 14:36

The melody of the song can alos be heard played on brass instruments earlier in the film.

I'm puzzled as to whether the Italian creators of the film had any idea that it was a sailor song, singing about "the main royal," etc, or if they just picked it because it appeared on an album of "traditional songs of Britain."

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05 Aug 12 - 02:04 AM (#3386285)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: GUEST

heres your sea song! Under The Sea

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08 Aug 12 - 02:42 AM (#3387418)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: GUEST,Roberto

refresh

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10 Aug 14 - 05:08 PM (#3649938)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Gibb Sahib

Any new findings?

Here's one from me:

Chanties in _White Squall_

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10 Aug 14 - 06:35 PM (#3649960)
Subject: RE: Films with sea music
From: Jack Campin

Anybody know Arabic shanties?

Fairouz's song "Nassam Alayna el Hawa" has quite a few call-and-response bits, and in its setting in the film it was written for they sometimes coincide with work activities on the ships. "Take me home" is a pretty common theme in shanty lyrics. So were the Rahbani brothers borrowing from shanties?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUbQcxsJwWQ

http://blogs.transparent.com/arabic/nassam-alayna-el-hawa/

Were there any shanties being mouthed silently in "Battleship Potemkin"?

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