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12 Jan 04 - 09:30 AM (#1091072) Subject: Origins: good ship ragamuffin From: Mick O'Farrell I'm trying to find a recorded version of a song I've heard sung live. It's sung at a fast tempo, so the words are hard to decipher but I think some of them are as follows : - "And the wind began to blow, and the ship began to roll, and the devil of a hurricane did blow, hi, ho. It nearly knocked the stuffing from the good ship Ragamuffin, and down to the bottom, she shall go." P.S. It's not a variation on 'Botany Bay', which also mentions 'The Good Ship Ragamuffin'. As the melody and clearly the words, are very different. |
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12 Jan 04 - 10:14 AM (#1091103) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin From: Geoff the Duck I tried a web search osing "good ship ragamuffin", but can only find mentions of the Bricks and Mortar song. Quack! GtD. |
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22 Jan 05 - 09:48 PM (#1385638) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin From: Lighter This was recorded way back in 1958 or '59 by Paul Clayton and the Fo'csle Singers (including Dave Van Ronk) on the Folkways album "Fo'csle Songs and Shanties." Now you can download their version from MSN-Music for 99 cents if you're in the U.S. I have the original album with the notes if anybody needs the song info. |
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04 Apr 05 - 12:28 PM (#1451780) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin From: GUEST,Bob Coltman Yes - it would be useful to have the info about the song from the album notes. Indeed do you have the ability to scan text? It would be VERY interesting to have the contents of those notes--particularly any songs that show Clayton's authorship or part-authroship, and especially-particularly anything bearing on Clayton's biography. |
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04 Apr 05 - 01:21 PM (#1451841) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin From: GUEST,Lighter w/o cookie My superpowers do not include scanning of texts. I will dig out the notes, however. All of the songs on the album are traditional. |
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05 Apr 05 - 08:06 AM (#1452491) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin From: A Wandering Minstrel More commonly known as Captain Nipper. The part you quoted is the chorus. This is a "Paddy West" type song full of fake sea-faring references presumably meant to fool the landlubbers. as best I recall it begins: Twas an Friday in November as I very well remember when I nearly broke me dear old mothers heart For I signed with Captain Nipper On his big four-masted clipper All bound away for southern parts I have the rest written down somewhere, if you want it? |
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05 Apr 05 - 08:53 AM (#1452525) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin From: GUEST,MMario yes. please. thank you. |
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06 Apr 05 - 07:58 AM (#1453481) Subject: Lyr Add: CAPTAIN NIPPER From: A Wandering Minstrel OK here you go: Twas an Friday in November as I very well remember when I nearly broke me dear old mothers heart For I signed with Captain Nipper On his big four-masted clipper All bound away for southern parts CH And the wind began to blow, and the ship began to roll, and the devil of a hurricane did blow, hi, ho. It nearly knocked the stuffing from the good ship Ragamuffin, and we thought to the bottom , we would go. So we weighed the maintop spanker and then we hauled up our anchor and dropped the pilot at the harbours mouth Then we set off down the river with our skysails all a-quiver on a compass bearing east-nor-west by south Then the captain came on deck and he said ...Blooming heck! and bade each man put on an oilskin coat He said he'd come to a decision as we'd plenty of provisions we was going to run a record voyage out But the sky turned very black the winds began to crack and our fore-jiboom-t'gans'l carried away So we pulled the helm hard over and we sailed her back to Dover and anchored on the downs at break of day |
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18 Apr 05 - 08:13 AM (#1464222) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin From: Jim Dixon CAPTAIN NIPPER was recorded by Robin Richmond & His Organ Grinders Swing, with vocalist Benny Lee. It's on a collection called "Organ Contrasts," Empress CD #900, 1999. You can hear a sound sample at allmusic. |
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24 Sep 12 - 02:42 AM (#3409296) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: GUEST Veryan Hutchings My Grandfather used to sing this song to my mother another version on the same theme i think ! Just another verse to add. We were outbound to Calcutta with a stock of Irish butter cigarettes and whisky in galore passengers we were twenty and heavens knows that was plenty for the good ship could carry no blinking more !! |
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24 Sep 12 - 03:56 PM (#3409541) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: GUEST Some of the printed sources I have name 'Shanties and Forebitters, 1914, by Bedecker, as the source, but I haven't got a copy of this. |
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24 Sep 12 - 04:30 PM (#3409554) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: GUEST,Lighter Clayton's note: "CAPTAIN NIPPER. This delightful British foc'sle ditty has been collected only rarely from tradition. More than likely it was first popularized in British music halls, and taken from there to the foc'sle by one of the many sailors who frequented the music halls in their layover between ocean trips." He also points out the existence of Mrs. Clifford Beckett's 1914 text, which is almost identical to his. Beckett says, "'Captain Nipper' is far too good a song to lose. I chased it for two years before I got it as given here. I believe 'the good ship rag-a-muffin' refers to the old Bellerophon." Well, I very much doubt that. Beckett writes that she collected the eight songs in her booklet from sailors. One of them is "The Chinese Bum-Boat Man." |
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25 Sep 12 - 09:53 AM (#3409898) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: GUEST,SteveG Jon, It's me Steve G. I don't know where I got 'Bedecker' from instead of Beckett. I'd go along with Clayton, exactly what I was thinking. Are the Beckett songs available anywhere? |
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25 Sep 12 - 10:19 AM (#3409916) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: Brian Peters I found a copy of this song (not listed in the Roud Index) in the Collinson archive in Edinburgh. I was looking for something else at the time so wasn't paying it much attention, but from my notes it looks like the performer was called Crosby and that it was collected in Cottingham. There was a shout of 'Woolloomoolloo!' at the end of each chorus, and I think Collinson used that for his song title. |
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25 Sep 12 - 10:48 AM (#3409927) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: GUEST Cyril Tawney used to sing this but didn't record it. I've sung it myself, minus the last two verses given above. It's in one of Roy Palmer's books too.(this off the top of my head, I'm not near my books at the moment so I can't say which one.) |
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25 Sep 12 - 10:57 AM (#3409933) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: RoyH (Burl) That last guest was me. I hadn't noticed that my cookie was dead.ROY |
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25 Sep 12 - 12:01 PM (#3409972) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: Brian Peters Hello Roy!! |
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25 Sep 12 - 12:54 PM (#3410007) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: Les from Hull As to Ragamuffin referring to Bellerophon, Bellerophones were usually referred to as 'Billy Ruffian'. I'm sure that Ragamuffin was chosen as a very unlikely name for a ship. |
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25 Sep 12 - 04:02 PM (#3410075) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: Steve Gardham Hi again, Brian. Hi, Roy. Hi, Les. (Meeting with council went well) Roy P's book is 'Room for Company' p40. I'm very interested in your reference to Cottingham. Would that be Cottingham near Hull? Has it got a date of collection on it? Do you know what Collinson was doing in Cottingham? Did he collect anything else in the area? |
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26 Sep 12 - 04:36 AM (#3410303) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: Brian Peters Hi Steve, I thought that might pique your curiosity. Like I said, I wasn't really paying too much attention to the detail - I just like the song and was interested to find an alternative version. However, the RI tells me that Collinson collected 'Around Cape Horn and Home Again' in Cottingham, Yorks., from a Captain Fox in January 1951, so at least we know when he was there. I hope to get back to the Collinson papers next time I'm in Edinburgh, and will look again. From memory, his song transcriptions don't include very much detail about the circumstances of collection, but there may be something in his personal papers. |
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26 Sep 12 - 07:30 AM (#3410358) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: GUEST Jim Mageean recorded it on his CD The Capstan Bar from a long time ago. His words are a bit different from The Wandering Minstrel and he has an extra verse |
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26 Sep 12 - 09:22 AM (#3410406) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: GUEST,Lighter Steve, if you mean "recorded," I'd say not - except maybe for Clayton et al's "Captain Nipper." (Two lines are different though.) The contents: Way Down to Rio ["Rio Grande"] Roll the Cotton Down The Wide Missouri The Merchant Ship ["According to the Act"] Captain Bover ["The Weary Cutters"] Captain Nipper The Chinese Bum-Boat Man Fare Well and Adieu to You Fair Spanish Ladies It's nice little collection, made up songs the editor used "to illustrate my lectures on sea music." She makes two interesting observations: that "Shanties belong to the Merchant Service only, and that because of its "beautiful melody," "The Wide Missouri" was sung as a forebitter as well as a shanty. Not much on Mrs. Beckett is easily findable. She was born Bessie Drummond Thomason to a family prominent in India. In 1889 she married William Thomas Clifford Beckett (1862-1956), an Indian Army officer and railway engineer: he became a general during the Great War. The only other things I've discovered about Bessie is that she was a trained singer who performed a pair of classical songs at a Nonconformist church in Tunbridge Wells in 1905 and launched a series of five lectures on "Song as an expression of life" in 1913. Her primary resource in collecting appears to have been her naval-officer son, Capt. Walter Napier Thomason Beckett (described in later life as an "Elizabethan" figure: see Wikipedia), but she also acknowledges "many friends in both branches of the Navy [i.e., Royal and Merchant] for the kind way they have sung me the shanties and forebitters and the pains they have taken to give me the correct versions of the words and the melodies." |
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26 Sep 12 - 09:23 AM (#3410407) Subject: Lyr Add: CAPTAIN NIPPER From: Jim Dixon Here's my transcription from a recording I heard on Spotify (I'm not sure about verse 4 line 3.): CAPTAIN NIPPER As sung by Paul Clayton and the Foc'sle Singers on "Foc'sle Songs and Shanties" (1959) 1. 'Twas the fifteenth of September— How well I do remember— It nearly broke my poor old mother's heart, For I shipped with Captain Nipper In a big four-masted clipper Bound away down south for foreign parts. CHORUS: And the wind began to blow, And the ship began to roll, And the devil of a hurricane did blow—oh, my, oh! It nearly knocked the stuffin' From the good ship Ragamuffin, And we thought to the bottom we should go. 2. Then we hoisted up our anchor, And we set our jib an' spanker, And the pilot took us to the harbor's mouth. Then from the tug we parted, And on our voyage started, With a compass headed east-nor'west by south. 3. Then there came a good stiff breeze That made the old man sneeze, And carried away the sails on ev'ry hand, And for seven long days we bore't, While runnin' right afore't, Thinkin' we would never see the land. 4. But the ship got caught aback, And the stays began to crack, And the fore-gallant-fores'ls carried away, So we pulled the helm [pronounced "hellum"] over, And headed straight for Dover, And at last we anchored safe within the bay. |
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26 Sep 12 - 02:35 PM (#3410571) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: GUEST,leeneia Thanks for posting, Jim. It's a clever song. |
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26 Sep 12 - 04:43 PM (#3410618) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: Steve Gardham It's certainly an interesting song, quite scarce, and yes probably 1890s Music hall. Usually the genre is full of nonsense (e.g. 'Cruise of the Calabar', 'Fish and Chip Ship' etc) but this contains relatively little nonsense... Hoisted up our anchor' East nor-west by south The use of a 'tug' by the pilot means it can't go back very far into the nineteenth century surely? Les? Thanks for the background, Jon. Looks like it might be worth keeping a lookout for a copy. Has Gibb Sahib used it do you know? |
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26 Sep 12 - 07:14 PM (#3410683) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: GUEST,LIghter I don't know, Steve. BTW, Stan Hugill gives a few lines in "Shanties and Sailors' Songs" that was sent him "by Capt. C. S. Smith of Hong Kong, one-time apprentice in the barque 'Inverclyde'." It's pretty much the same as the first stanza above, except for "the fifteenth of November" and "To sail round the north and foreign parts." The chorus goes, "Oh, the windy winds did blow, and the rain and blindin' snow, And the devil of a hurricane did blow-o-oh! And it nearly knocked the stuffin' out of the good ship 'Ragamuffin,' As off to the tropics we did go." Both stanza and chorus end with the exclamation "Woollamaloosh!" "Unfortunately," Hugill writes, "Capt. Smith had forgotten the rest of this interesting bit of nonsense." Let's not forget a second song with a "good ship Ragamuffin" in it: the well-known one taking "old Mick with his shovel and his pick/ To the shores of Botany Bay" (or "Americay"). It was known in the 1890s. |
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27 Sep 12 - 04:29 AM (#3410786) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: Brian Peters "Both stanza and chorus end with the exclamation "Woollamaloosh!"" That ties in with the Collinson version, then. |
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27 Sep 12 - 07:53 AM (#3410839) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: GUEST,Lighter And a stage origin. |
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28 Sep 12 - 07:08 AM (#3411294) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: GUEST Steam tugs were introduced in the 1820s as they were very useful getting sailing ships out of harbour. But the four masted barque rig claimed for Ragamuffin became popular in the 1880s. |
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28 Sep 12 - 08:10 AM (#3411321) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: Les from Hull Sorry, that was me sans biscuit. |
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25 Apr 15 - 11:50 AM (#3704096) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: GUEST,Bob Hill At the Nautical College Pangbourne the version was I shipped with Captain Bruiser On a big three funnelled cruiser |
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25 Apr 15 - 12:29 PM (#3704105) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: Lighter A modern naval adaptation? Thanks for sharing. When was that, anyway? |
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29 Apr 16 - 01:26 AM (#3787743) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: GUEST,crumpled Let's not forget a second song with a "good ship Ragamuffin" in it: the well-known one taking "old Mick with his shovel and his pick/ To the shores of Botany Bay" (or "Americay"). It was known in the 1890s. As spoken by Lighter GUEST a few years ago. Any more info? - I'm trying to chase this song which has no version I can find online - just some chorus snippets from the early 20th Century. And yes, I know the Australian version which so many have copied. |
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10 Oct 22 - 12:00 PM (#4154614) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: GUEST it seems to have been a music hall song in the repertoire of WJ Ashcroft- written for him by John J Stamford. More information https://folksongandmusichall.com/index.php/wreck-of-the-ragamuffin/ john (folksong and music Hall.com ( |
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10 Oct 22 - 12:56 PM (#4154619) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: Lighter Outstanding, GUEST! Thanks for posting - and for your research! |
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10 Oct 22 - 01:09 PM (#4154622) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: Steve Gardham Nice one, John. We just need to find the sheet music now. |
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27 Dec 22 - 05:47 AM (#4160369) Subject: RE: Origins: good ship ragamuffin? / Captain Nipper From: Daniel Kelly Had a go at this one after looking for other 'ragamuffin' based sea songs than 'Shores of Botany Bay'. |