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The History Of
Sea-Songs,
Shanties & Ballads
Music has played a central part in life at sea by
providing not only entertainment and contributing to the health and
morale of seamen but also rhythm and cohesion to the everyday
tasks of sailors and fishermen. Sea shanties were rhythmic
songs that helped the sailors “keep the time” during work tasks.
Pulling line to raise or trim sails, weighing anchor, or the
ever-monotonous work on the bilge pumps were all made less mundane
by a cheerful song. The more fitting the song, the easier the
work, as Richard Dana describes in Two Years Before
The Mast and Twenty Four Years After (Harvard,
1909): We often found a great difference in the effect of the
different songs in driving in the hides. Two or three songs would be
tried, one after the other, with no effect;—not an inch could be got
upon the tackles—when a new song, struck up, seemed to hit the humor
of the moment, and drove the tackles “two blocks” at once. “Heave
round hearty!” “Heave round hearty!” “Captain gone ashore!” and the
like, might do for common pulls, but in an emergency, when we wanted
a heavy, “raise-the-dead” pull, which should start the beams of the
ship, there was nothing like “Time for us to go!” “Round the
corner,” or “Hurrah! hurrah! my hearty bullies!”
Apart from working songs, there were also
ballads, or sailor's folk-songs, which, at sea, "is sung in
the second dog-watch"(1) and "in port, at night, after
supper. Ashore, where those wants do not exist, there is
nothing quite like them. At sea, where those wants are ever present,
they are of every nationality"(2)
"The most beautiful chanty I have ever heard was sung
by a Norwegian crew. I have heard two Greek chanties of great
beauty, and I am told that the Russians have at least one as
beautiful as any of our own. "(3)
The importance of music in 16th Century ship life is
noted In Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to
Newfoundland, by Edward Hayes, the commander of the
ship the Golden Hinde (1580), who writes,
"Besides, for solace of our people, and allurement of the
savages, we were provided of music in good variety;"
In fact, music was so important to
English Seadog, Sir Francis Drake, that he requested
professional musicians on his voyage in 1589. Having heard of the
great quaility of their music, Drake asked the mayor of Norwich to
send the waits for his forthcoming Portuguese voyage; as it turned
out, the waits wanted to go, and the mayor's court accepted
the invitation. The Nowich courtship bought for the waits: six
cloaks, three new hautboys, a treble recorder, provided a
wagon to carry them and their instruments, and gave them ten pounds
each for their expenses (4). Unfortunately, one of the Norwich
waits, Anthony Wyllson, died on Drake's voyage.
In 1785, James Boswell, in The Journal of
a Tour To The Hebrides With Samuel Johnson, LL.D.,
writes:
"Our boatmen sung with great spirit. Dr Johnson
observed, that naval musick was very ancient. As we came near the
shore, the singing of our rowers was succeeded by that of reapers,
who were busy at work, and who seemed to shout as much as to sing,
while they worked with a bounding activity."
However, generally speaking, most scholars would
agree that the 19th century was the golden age for "shanty singing",
ironically this coincided with the end of
the sailing era. For as the great ships of sail slowly
died out, and were superseded by steam, so did alot of the
great ballads and shanties disappear.
Yet,
even in earlier time periods shanties and ballads sometimes
struggled to survive, in the 18th Century not all sailors were
permitted to sing songs. In Nelson’s Navy for example, sea songs and
ditties were banned and replaced with calling out a cadence of
numbers or the rhythmic playing of a fiddle or fife.
As F.W Symondson writes in, Two Years
Abaft The Mast (1876, Edinburgh):
Merchant
Jack laughs with contempt as he watches their crew in uniform dress,
walking around the windlass, weighing anchor like mechanical
dummies. No hearty chanties here --- no fine chorus ringing with
feeling and sentiment, brought out with a sort of despairing
wildness, which so often strikes neighbouring landsfolk with deepest
emotion
One form of music which both navy men and merchant seamen
shared was the f'c's'le(forecastle) song or forebitter (named after
the forebitts). Commonly, forecastle is often pronounced like
it's common abbreviation fox-uhl (f'c's'le) and is an
area near the bow of a ship where sailors often make
their living quarters. This also came to the latter
meaning as the phrase "before the mast" which denotes anything
related to ordinary sailors (as opposed to a ship's officers). The
forebitts is a construction of iron or timber near the foremast
which many of the principal ropes run. Sailors assemble there in
good weather during dog-watches and other free times to talk and
exchange songs. In bad weather, the activity would take place in the
f'c's'le. Hence, this set of songs became known as forebitters and
F'c's'le songs.
As Dr. John Covel in 1670, (as published by the
Hakluyt Society) observed:
we seldome fail of some merry fellows in every ship's
crew who will entertain us with several diversions, as divers sorts
of odde Sports and Gambols; sometimes with their homely drolls and
Farses, which in their corrupt language they nickname Interlutes;
sometimes they dance about the mainmast instead of a may-pole and
they have a variety of forecastle songs, ridiculous enough.
Another account is observed by Richard Dana in
Two Years Before The Mast (Harvard,
1909):
...and I shall never forget hearing an old salt, who
had broken his voice by hard drinking on shore, and bellowing from
the mast-head in a hundred north-westers, with all manner of
ungovernable trills and quavers—in the high notes, breaking into a
rough falsetto—and in the low ones, growling along like the dying
away of the boatswain’s “all hands ahoy!” down the hatch-way,
singing,
Oh, no, we never mention him.
Perhaps, like me, he struggles with
Each feeling of
regret;
But if he’s loved as I have loved,
He never can
forget!
The last line, being the conclusion,
he roared out at the top of his voice, breaking each word up into
half a dozen syllables. This was very popular, and Jack was called
upon every night to give them his “sentimental song.” No one called
for it more loudly than I, for the complete absurdity of the
execution, and the sailors’ perfect satisfaction in it, were
ludicrous beyond measure..."
Sometimes such songs were accompanied by
other instruments, dance and merriment. The customs of French
sailors have been well documented. Augustin Jal in his
'Scenes de la Vie Marltime' (1832) precisely
describes rondes du bord (ring dances) and the use of
instruments, and cites 12 songs: "With which the sailors amused
themselves during leisure time on board, and which are quite out of
place except between the bowsprit and the booms." Mostly
very ribald songs, and he quotes only two in their entirety:
Le Navire Merveilleux (The Wonderful Ship) and Les Dix
Navires Charges de Ble (The Ten Ships Loaded With Wheat).(5)
The vitality of this popular tradition is equally well
described in the works of Gabriel de la Landelle, an officer of the
'Royale' and a prolific writer. He sprinkles his maritime
novels with genre scenes, describing the rejoicings of the sailors,
and he published several essays on ship's customs. Notably in
1844, La Landelle produced an article on sailors' rondes (ring
dances) where the words and music to several songs are set down.
Thus Le Navire Merveilleux, an evocation of an imaginary ship,
goes thus:
La misaine est en dentelle
Les huniers en satin
blanc
Les gabiets de la grands hune
Sont des filles de 18
ans ...
The fore-sail is of
lace
The topsails in white satin
The topmen of the
main-top
Are 18 year old girls ...
He describes the ring-dances thus:
The rondes, the real rondes of the foredeck, those
are the popular songs. They are not cooed in a husky voice,
they are bellowed full-voiced, with all your lungs, they are
repeated whilst dancing Breton style. If one funloving
individual gets up and takes five or six companions with him, the
song will start, and you will see the circle get bigger and
sometimes a second circle will form around the first.
Sometimes they go round in a circle, more often they only
do 3 or 4 steps from right to left jumping in time at the point of
the refrain. I will never forget the circumstances in which
I heard the ronde "Titi Lariti" for the first time. We were
returning from Brazil and approached the coast of France in the
middle of winter. The sailors were shivering; they had got
together in a tight huddle walking along the gangway between the
fore-mast and the main-mast: they were stamping in time, and in
this way, close together, they were singing ...
Quand j'étais chez mon père,
Quand j'etais
chez mon père,
Petite à la ti ti, la ri ti, tonton
lariton
Petite à la maison.
On m'envoyait à l'herbe pour
cueillir du cresson.
La rivière est profonde, je suis tombée
au fond.
When I was at my father's
house
When I was at my father's house
Petite a la ti ti
la riti tonton lariton
Little one at home
They sent me
to the green fields to cut some cress
The river is deep and
I fell to the bottom.
(6)
These
forbitter or f'c's'le songs and ballads often described the hard
life on board the tall ships. They spoke of the good or bad
properties of a ship or about the emotional links sailors had with
the shore and those left behind. Even the people on board the
ship frequently appear in song. For example, the hated
pervasive purser, captains and commanders could be detested or
admired, and songs are sung about shipmates, some of which
turned out to be female. Until about the early 1700's, ballads were
quarto sheets in the old black-letter or gothic type. One of the
major 17th century collections is that of Samuel Pepys, which
contains over 1,600 sheets. Some of which, provide 16th century
origins for songs sung at a much later period.
While the ballad and the shantey are indeed a little
different, one is for work and one for entertaining, in the 20th
century the term "shantey", is usually applied in the modern sense
to include both types of songs.
The
Etymology Of The Term "Shantey" / "Shanty" /
"Chantey"
There
is some historical confusion & debate about where the term
sea "shantey" was derived. Some historians suggest that the songs
were named from the French word “chanter” which means "to sing".
Others argue that the songs name degenerated from the English word
"chant". The English word chant means to make melodic sounds with
the voice; especially: to sing a chant or to recite in a
monotonous repetitive tone. Looking at the Etymology of the word:
Middle English chaunten, from Middle French chanter,
from Latin cantare, frequentative of canere to
sing; akin to Old English hana rooster, Old Irish canid
he sings intransitive senses, one might suggest that
its origin is Irish or Latin!(7)
Here
are some common dictionary definitions:
-
Merriam-Webster
Paperback Dictionary (1997 5th
Ed.) - Page 137 - "chan-tey or
chanty \shan-te, chan-\
n, pl chanteys or chanties : a
song sung by sailors in rhythm with their work."
-
Shorter
Oxford English Dictionary (1927, Reprint
1953) Page 1864 - "Shanty ... Also
chant(e)y 1869 (perhaps a corruption of French chantez, imperative
of chanter to sing.) A sailor's song, esp. one sung during heavy
work"
-
The
Columbia Encyclopedia (Columbia University Press,
1935)-"Chantey or shanty, work song with
marked rhythm, particularly one sung by a group of sailors while
pulling ropes or pushing the capstan.... Similar songs are also
sung by shore gangs and lumbermen..."
-
The
American Heritage Dictionary Of The English Language (2000 4th
Ed.) - "Chan-tey, or Chan-ty (sh  n  t  , ch n ) . pl. chan·teys, also
chan·ties A song sung by sailors to the rhythm of their movements
while working. [Probably from French chantez, imperative pl.
of chanter, to sing, from Old
French]"
Certainly
the current term "Shanty" also spelled, Shantey -
Chantey - Chanty, is a modern one,
which most historians agree was not used in English prior to about
the 19th or 18th centuries. However, these types of songs were sung
well back in history --- and were mostly commonly referred
to as "songs and ditties".
The
reference to sea-songs as "shanties" in the 18-19th Century may have
occurred possibly for several reasons:
1. French "chantez" - either Norman French, Modern or 'Gumbo'
dialect of New Orleans.
2. English "chant" or Old English "chaunt". See
also 8.
3. The drinking Shanties of the Gulf ports (Mobile in particular)
where black and white would congregate. Note that this is slightly
less tenuous than 6. below, as, despite the non "musical" origin of
the word, many coloured sailors went to sea from this area during
the 19th Century and made reputations as singers of work
songs.
4. Much the same as 3. - in Australia a "shanty" is a
public-house, especially an unlicensed one (1864) and to shanty is
to carouse or get drunk. Again, during the 19th Century, many
seagoing shanteymen came from Australia and few people are likely to
deny that drinking and singing (and sailors!) often go together.
5. Boat songs of the old French voyageurs of the New World, known
as chansons (L.A. Smith, C.F. Smith)
6. The lumbermen's songs which often start with "Come all ye
brave shanty-boys" a shantyman here being a lumberman or a
backwoodsman.
7. West Indian Negroes used to move their shanties (huts built on
stilts) by gangs pulling with a singing leader perched on the roof -
he was the shanty man. (8)
8. A possible variation of the word "Chantry"
--- Chantry -- A place where religious chant was
conducted by early monks. Chantry is a term for the English
establishment of a shrine or chapel on private land where monks or
priests would say (or "chant") prayers on a fixed schedule. At sea,
the forebitts, or f'cs'le would serve as the Chantry for sea going
monks, and later the European sailors, many who were devout in
their religions.
Despite the many plausible explanations of the origin of the
word, it is most commonly theorized that in the 18th-19th
century during the slave trade, the subsequent
colonization of Africa; and through the development of "shanty"
towns, that the term "Shanty" originally described the working
songs of the African people living in "shanty" towns along the
coast. It then became adapted by sailors and used to describe
all songs at sea by the 19th century.
One of the first historical authorities on the subject, Captain
W.B. Whall, wrote in his the first edition of
Sea Songs and Shanties (1910, Brown,
Son and Ferguson, Glasgow):
As to the spelling of shanty,
the earliest collection known to us, published about 1875, calls
these ditties "Shanty Songs", meaning we suppose, songs from the
shanties. Many of the early ones were certainly nigger; for example,
"Way! Sing Sally", "Jamboree", "Let de bulgine run"; and though as a
rule white men did not sing "nigger", still there were hundreds of
coloured men in our ships, both naval and mercantile, and many of
these songs came from the shanties, as the Negro huts on the
Southern plantations were called. In any case why go to the French
when we have the good old English word "chant?" There are many good
French sea songs of this class, but they are not called
"chanteys
No-matter the terminology, sea-songs, ballads, and working
songs were an important part of seafaring life, and "shanties" as we
know them today, existed well before the 14th
Century.
Sea-Songs/Shanty/Chanty Early Forms:
The Irish roots for this type of song can be traced back to at
least about the 6th century, when Christian monks began to
sail away from the shores of Ireland to remote island locations.
Along they way, they would perform monastic chants while doing
work, or in harried situations to pray to the divine order to
carry them to safety. Saint Brendan the Abbott, was one of the
most famous of these monks, reportedly to have reached North America
long before either Columbus or the Vikings, and wrote a detailed
account of his voyage in the Navigato Sancti
Brendani Abbatis [The Voyage Of St.
Brendan the Abbott] (D. O’Donoghue, Brendaniana,
1893), in this account there are several different
references to the singing of hymns and chanting in a call and
response style. This is noted very concisely in one
passage in particular; whereupon the 3rd watch, St. Brendan
& crew would sing in a call and response style:
...When supper was
ended, and the divine office discharged, the man of God and his
companions retired to rest until the third watch of the night, when
he aroused them all from sleep, chanting the verse: ‘Thou, O Lord,
wilt open my lips;’ whereupon all the birds, with voice and
wing, warbled in response: ‘Praise the Lord, all His angels, praise
Him all His virtues.’ Thus they sang for an
hour every night; and when
morning dawned, they chanted: ‘May the splendour of the Lord God be
upon us,’ in the same melody and measures their matin praises of
God. Again, at tierce, they sang the verse: ‘Sing to our God, sing;
sing to our King, sing wisely;’ at sext: The Lord hath caused the
light of His countenance to shine upon us, and may He have mercy on
us;’ and at none they sang: ‘Behold how good and how pleasant it is
for brethren to dwell in unity.’ Thus day and night those birds gave
praise to God. St Brendan, seeing all this, made thanksgiving to the
Lord for all His wonderful works; and the brethren were thus regaled
with such spiritual viands until the octave of the Easter
festival. [The monks and the birds here very explicitly
engage in a 'call and response' manner of singing]
There is also mention of a "Sea-Roller's Song" composed by
Heriulf Heriulfsson the son of Bard Heriulfsson, in The
Voyages To Vinland [1000 A.D.] (Harvard,
1909), [the account of the discovery of North America by Leif
Ericsson contained in the “Saga of Eric the Red”; and the
present translation made by A. M. Reeves from the version of
the Saga in the Flateyar-bok, compiled by Jon Thordharson about
1387],
Upon the ship with Heriulf was a Christian man from the
Hebrides; he it was who composed the Sea-Roller’s Song, which
contains this stave:
| |
“Mine adventure to the Meek One, |
|
Monk-heart-searcher, I commit
now; |
|
He, who heaven’s halls doth govern, |
|
Hold the hawk’s-seat ever o’er
me!” |
From these early monastic roots, shanties in medieval Europe came
to be used by sea-farers, mariners, and pilgrims alike --- as
primarily songs sung while working the ship or to raise morale.
As this early account written around 1480-1483, taken
from The Book of Wanderings from Brother Felix
Fabri (trans.Aubrey Stewart, M.A. Published London, 24,
HANOVER SQUARE, 1896) describes:
ABOUT THE SHIP IN WHICH THE
PILGRIMS CROSS THE SEA, WHICH IS NAMED A GALLEY; HOW GREAT AND OF
WHAT SORT IT IS.
They are in general very
active young men, who are quite reckless of their lives, and are
also bold and powerful in the galley like a baron's armed followers.
Under these again there are others who are called mariners, who sing
when work is going on, because work at sea is very heavy, and is
only carried on by a concert between one who sings out orders and
the labourers who sing in response. So these men stand by those who
are at work, and sing to them, encourage them, and threaten to spur
them on with blows. Great weights are dragged about by their
means.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus' journal makes reference to an
ancient hymn, Salve Regina, which was sung by the
seaman in the fc's'le, "they said the 'Salve,' which all
the sailors are used to say and sing in their fashion, the Admiral
ordered them to look out well from the forecastle" (9)
Peter F. Copeland, in "The Sailors of Palos," in
American History
Illustrated, Vol XXVII, Number
1, March/April 93, writes that according to
Columbus' journal: " An apprentice carried
the binnacle lamp
aft along the deck, singing "Amen and God give
us a good night
and a good sailing. May the ship make a good
passage,
captain and master and good company." Then the
apprentices
led the sailors in prayer, chanting the Pater Noster,
the Ave
Maria, and the Credo, after which all hands sang the
Salve
Regina. For the sailors these chanted rituals of the
church
were comforting and expected, their only link to their
distant
homeland".
Although a religious hymn, seafaring men
doubtless came to favor it (Salve Regina) because it
was so eminently singable. It came to be used as part of
the ritual for the blessing of a ship, and the core of evening
service on shipboard (10). In Samuel E. Morrison's
Admiral of The Ocean Sea, he refers to it as
an "ancient Spanish shanty" sung aboard Columbus's ships. There is
considerable evidence that the hymn was popular as a song of
exultant joy, a tribute more to its lilting melody than to its
references to mourning, weeping and exile.
This hymn can also be traced to formulas taught on
missionary journeys, especially in the Caribbean. It was popular at
medieval universities as evening song, and was the frequent setting
for devotions known as Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
Chantries were established in the medieval and Renaissance
periods for the singing of the Salve, especially on Saturday
evenings. [A chantry is an endowment or foundation for the chanting
of masses and offering of prayers for particular persons or
intentions.] Regardless of its historical origin, it was well known
and established in France and Germany by the 12th century. It was
definitely part of the liturgical prayer of many monasteries and
part of the common prayer of many religious orders.(11)
| Latin Text #1 |
English Text #1 |
Salve, Regina, mater misericordiae;
vita, dulcedo et spes nostra, salve.
Ad te clamamus,
exsules filii Hevae.
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
in hac lacrimarum valle.
Eia ergo, advocata nostra,
illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte.
Et
Iesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui,
nobis post hoc
exsilium ostende.
O clemens, o pia, o dulcis Virgo
Maria. |
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy,
hail, our life, our sweetness, and our hope.
To you we
cry, the children of Eve;
to you we send up our sighs,
mourning and weeping in this land of exile.
Turn,
then, most gracious advocate,
your eyes of mercy toward
us;
lead us home at last
and show us the blessed fruit
of your womb, Jesus:
O clement, O loving, O sweet virgin
Mary. |
| Latin Variation #2 |
English Variation #2 |
|
Salve Regina
coelitum O Maria
Sors unica
terrigenum O Maria
Chorus
Jubilate
Cherubim exsultate Seraphim
consonate
perpetim
Salve
Salve Salve Regina
Mater
misericordiae O Maria
Dulcis paren
clementiae O Maria
Tu vitae lux
fons gratiae O Maria
Causa nostrae
laetitiae O Maria
|
Hail Holy
Queen enthron'd above, O Maria
Hail Mother
of Mercy and of love O Maria
Chorus;
Triumph
all ye Cherubim Sing with us ye Seraphim Heav'n and earth
resound the hymn
Salve
Salve Salve Regina
Our life our
sweetness here below O Maria
Our hope in
sorrow and in woe O
Maria |
Earliest Documented English Sea
Shanty:
As far as the earliest documented existence
of English sailors singing at work comes from a manuscript of the
reign of the English king Henry VI (1421-71). This is a sea song,
perhaps one of the oldest in Europe -- describing a ship loaded with
pilgrims, bound from Sandwyche, Wynchelsee, and Bristow (Bristol)
toward the shrine of St. James (Santiago) in Compostella Spain (12).
Those who are interested will find it in J.O
Haliwell's Early Naval Ballads of England
(1841) which is generally considered to be the
first anthology of such ballads and shanties and sits in the library
of Trinity College, Cambridge:
Anon the master commandeth fast
To his ship-men
in all the hast[e],
To dresse them [line up] soon
about the mast
Their takeling to make.
With _Howe! Hissa!_ then
they cry,
'What howe! mate thou standest too
nigh,
Thy fellow may not haul thee
by:'
Thus they
begin to crake [shout].
A boy or twain anon
up-steyn [go aloft]
And overthwart the sayle-yerde
leyn [lie]
_Y-how! taylia!_ the remnant cryen
[cry]
And pull
with all their might.
Bestow the boat,
boat-swain, anon,
That our pylgrymms may play
thereon;
For some are like to cough and
groan
Ere it be
full midnight.
Haul the bowline! Now veer the
sheet;
Cook, make ready anon our
meat!
Our pylgrymms have no lust to
eat:
I pray God
give them rest.
Go to the helm! What ho! no
neare[r]!
Steward, fellow! a pot of
beer!
Ye shall have, Sir, with good
cheer,
Anon all
of the best.
_Y-howe! Trussa!_ Haul in the
brailes!
Thou haulest not! By God, thou
failes[t]
O see how well our good ship
sails!
And thus
they say
among.
*
*
*
* *
Thys
meane'whyle the pylgrymms lie,
And have their bowls
all fast them by,
And cry after hot
malvesy--
'Their
health for to
restore.'
*
*
*
* *
Some lay
their bookys on their knee,
And read so long they
cannot see.
'Alas! mine head will split in
three!'
Thus
sayeth one poor
wight.
*
*
*
* *
A sack
of straw were there right good;
For some must lay
them in their hood:
I had as lief be in the
wood,
Without or
meat or drink!
For when that we shall go to
bed,
The pump is nigh our beddes
head:
A man he were as good be
dead
As smell thereof the
stynke!
*
*
*
* *
(Notes:
Howe--hissa! - is still used aboard
deepwater-men as Ho--hissa! instead of Ho--hoist away! What
ho, mate!- is also known afloat, though dying out. Y-howe!
taylia! - is Yo--ho! tally! or Tally and belay!
- which means hauling aft and making fast the sheet of a
mainsailor foresail. What ho! no nearer!- is What ho! no higher
now. But old salts remember no nearer! and it may be still
extant. Seasickness
seems to have been the same as ever--so was
the desperate effort to
pretend one was not really feeling
it:
And cry after hot
malvesy--
'Their health for to
restore.'
[Notes From: Elizabethan Sea Dogs By William Wood (1918:Yale)]
Sea Shanties/Songs In The 16th -
18th Centuries:
Little is precisely known about what the mariners of
this time sang at sea. There are many broadsheets written by
landsmen as a tribute to the sea, and as many written by sailors
themselves. However, many of the sheets quote tunes long since
forgotten, or simply mention they are sung to a "pleasant new tune".
Fortunately, many of these early tunes re-surface at later dates,
and this may give us an inkling of how they were sung at sea
originally. For example, Martin Parkers Ballad (1635),
"Sailors for my Money", reappeared about a decade later when it was
published as "Neptune's Raging Fury" (1645). In 1800, it was adapted
for singing in the parlour and concert hall by Thomas Campbell, and
was known as, "Ye Mariners Of England," but also continued to
circulate in something approaching its original form as "When stormy
winds do blow". In addition, it served as a pattern for many other
songs. Sailors treated texts with great freedom, adapting,
improvising, moving lines and whole verses from one song to
another, and they were similarly free with tunes. For example "Blow
The Man Down", one of the best known shanties in modern memory,
swallowed the words of a dozen other songs and took over several
other tunes. Shanties came to embrace all of the
pre-occupations of the sailor, from heroic battles, life on board,
emotion, and the conditions of the sea itself. There is a good
deal of evidence from memoirs and manuscripts that sailors aboard
ship wrote ballads and shanties to suit their needs, as it was the
easiest thing in the world to do(13).
Generally, the culture of the sea was one passed by
word-of-mouth, not to be written down to sit in a dusty anthology
that reeks of a stale museum. This sentiment is quite clearly
expressed in an account by Richard Dana, in Two Years
Before The Mast (Harvard, 1909):
Among her crew were two English man-of-war’s-men,
so that, of course, we soon had music. They sang in the true
sailor’s style, and the rest of the crew, which was a remarkably
musical one, joined in the choruses. They had many of the latest
sailor songs, which had not yet got about among our merchantmen, and
which they were very choice of. They began soon after we came on
board, and kept it up until after two bells, when the second mate
came forward and called “the Alerts away!” Battle-songs,
drinking-songs, boat-songs, love-songs, and everything else, they
seemed to have a complete assortment of, and I was glad to find that
“All in the Downs,” “Poor Tom Bowline,” “The Bay of Biscay,” “List,
ye Landsmen!” and all those classical songs of the sea, still held
their places. In addition to these, they had picked up at the
theatres and other places a few songs of a little more genteel cast,
which they were very proud of;
The great songs of the sea, like the tall ships, were
to slowly disappear with the appearance of the
steamships. As Capt. Whall frankly states in
Ships, Sea Songs, and
Shanties(1910), "...the romance of the sea is
gone, and with it are gone sea songs...remains of them there are, it
is true, but the character has all gone out of them". They have
become somewhat like fossils, as we can study them,
examine their parts, structures and rythms and imply what they may
have be used for, and how they were sung; but alas, "the words
of a song without music are very like dry bones" (14). As
Captain Downie, once wrote in 1860, "there are very few men now
living who can recollect the words of any of these old songs, for
they have been supplanted by music-hall ditties and songs out of
comic opera" (15). Therefore, like a palentolgist, to find
the colour and culture of these early songs we must look to
their ancestors, for which some have a direct lineage. Fortunately,
a host of modern day writers have helped to chisel away at these old
relics including: Stan Hugill, C.H. Firth, W.B. Wahll, John
Masefield, Richard Dana, and Joseph Conrad.
Understanding the "culture of the sea" in this time
period is also complicated further in that pioneers in the
study of sea-songs and ballads often dismiss some street
ballads as being charlatans. These are often highly acclaimed
by other writers as being genuine sea-songs. Stan Hugill writes in
Songs Of The Sea (1977, McGraw hill):
There do exist many dusty tomes in world
libraries containing collections of so-called seasongs, mainly
without airs, but most of these were composed by broadside-ballad
makers on shore. There is a tendecy in modern folkclubs to dig
out the better of these "poems" for that is what thet are -- and
adorn them with tunes from other folksongs, but this does not give
us a song as it was actually mouthed by wine-bibbing
sea-coneys
It is sometimes difficult to distinguish that which
was actually sung at sea on a ship, and that which was simply
the product of a landsmans imagination. It was often thought,
that a sailors authorship of such a ballad somehow increased the
sales. In the 19th Century, ballad sellers would assume the dress of
sailors to help with the sale of their so called "sea ballads".
They were known as "turnpike sailors", and generally were
despised by sailors and commanders alike. To complicate matters
further, naval victories and news was often proclaimed and made
public through the use of ballads. Most ballads were
cheaper (about 1/2p. in 1588) than newspapers (about
1p) and more accessible to those with a low level of reading
skills:
No Battle was fought, no vessel taken or sunken,
that the triumph was not published, proclaimed in the national
gazette of our ballad singer...It was he who bellowed music
into news, whcih, made to jingle, was thus even to the weakest
understanding rendered portable. It was his narrow strips of history
that adorned the garrets of the poor; it was he who made them
yearn towards their country, albeit to them so rough and niggard a
mother. (16)
Another problem is that words of shanties were
subordinate to the task at hand; as soon as it was completed
the song ceased, at whatever the point the singer had reached. It
would never be sung after the work was finished on ship or on shore,
unless it was one of those songs which doubled as shanty and
forebitter (17). Richard Dana comments in Two Years
Before The Mast (1909, Harvard):
A song is as necessary to sailors as the drum and
fife to a soldier. They can’t pull in time, or pull with a will,
without it. Many a time, when a thing goes heavy, with one fellow
yo-ho-ing, a lively song, like “Heave, to the girls!” “Nancy oh!”
“Jack Crosstree,” etc., has put life and strength into every arm. We
often found a great difference in the effect of the different songs
in driving in the hides.
Also, apart from the difference of function between
work and recreation, the shanties were often obscene. As such,
few texts have been published, since either a sailor censored
himself when singing in public, or the collecter/
broadsheet publisher edited his text before printing it. Some of the
bawdiest shanties were collected by Percy Grainger, and is discussed
at length in M.Yates, "The Best Bar of The Capstan: William Bolton,
Sailor and Shantyman" and by V. Gammon in the article, "Song, Sex,
and Society in England", 1600-1850"
However, there are frequent references, and
written compilations to sailors' recreational songs. Of
what Christopher Stone, Capt. Whall, Stan Hugill
and would call "the old and true sea songs":
...Christopher Stone Remarked: "Occasionally
there was real poetry in them, but it was poetry of thought or idea,
not of the phraseology." Yet there is a great deal of skill in such
songs. Their art is public rather than private, and despite the role
of print in dissemination, it is intended to be heard rather than
read... (18)
There exists no doubt that music was played
aboard the Elizabethan ships while at sea. For example, in
1567, Hawkins during his second voyage across the Atlantic
insisted "...on setting a good table, with fine linen and
silver, and dishes cooked to his liking. A group of five to six
musicians on board the Jesus of Lubeck played
fiddle music for the enjoyment of the captain and crew." (19).
The group was lead by a shantyman known as "a tiny youth
named William Low, twenty years old, though he looked like
a freckle-faced boy" (20)
Sir Edward Hayes, the rear-admiral to Humphrey Gilbert , and
commander and owner of the Golden Hinde,
records in Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage To
Newfoundland (1583): "We were in number in
all about 260 men; among whom we had of every faculty good choice
... for solace of our people, and allurement of the savages, we were
provided of music in good variety...The evening was fair and
pleasant, yet not without token of storm to ensue, and most part of
this Wednesday night, like the swan that singeth before her death,
they in the Admiral, or Delight, continued in sounding of trumpets,
with drums and fifes; also winding the cornets and hautboys, and in
the end of their jollity, left with the battle and ringing of
doleful knells." [Ironically, in this revelry, the watch failed
to sight the land ahead the next day, and the Delight being a
"very heavy burthen of 120 tons" foundered off the coast of
Newfoundland on the shores of Sable Island]
Likewise, in Luiz De Camoens epic,
Lusiadas(1572), he tells us it was the
custom aboard the ships of Vasco da Gama's fleet, en route to
India for the sailors to "sing songs and catches to lighten
their work," when raising anchors and making sail" (21)
Captain Forrest, in A Voyage to New Guinea
(1775), writes that "the Moors in what is called country
ships in East India, have also their cheering songs at work in
hoisting, or in their boats a rowing"(22)
Richard Hakluyt in the Voyager's
Tales (1582), writes:
"These ships, in token of
the joy on all partsconceived for their happy meeting, spared not
the discharging of their ordinance, the sounding of drums and
trumpets, the spreading of ensigns,with other warlike and joyful
behaviours,expressing by these outward signs the inward gladness of
their minds...now in sporting manner they made mirth and pastime
among themselves."
Further evidence of sea-songs, ditties, and tunes in the 16th
Century is also described in Walter Bigges, Drake's
Great Armada (1584), "forthwith came a Frenchman,
[Nicolas Borgoignon] being a fifer (who had been prisoner with them)
in a little boat, playing on his fife the tune of the Prince of
Orange his song."
[The 'Prince of Orange's Song' was a
popular ditty in praise of
William Prince of Orange (assassinated
1584), the leader of the Dutch
Protestant insurgents. In 1569,
William I, the Silent, prince of Oranje, who was one of the
principal noblemen of the region, led a revolt. Initially
unsuccessful, he chartered the ”Gueux de la mer ” which in
english means, “The Beggars of the Sea”, to harrass Spanish
shipping.]
Below is the chorus (stave) of a 15th Century "sea
shanty" as quoted by Charles Kightly in The Customs &
Ceremonies of Britain, Thames & Hudson, 1986). The rest
of the song is lost. The choruses of some ancient songs have a
boatman (named Norman in one such) rowing to Rumbylowe, so it seems
it was an island perhaps near Britain.:
Haile and Howe, Rumbylowe
Steer well the good ship and let
the wind blowe
On the board the Pinta, Spanish Sailors in 1492 were not only
known to sing f'c's'le songs, but also dance around the mainmast
(similar to the French ronde dance):
"Singing was another popular recreation for sailors far
from
home. We are told that after sighting the islands of
the New
World, the crew of the Pinta sang and danced around the
mainmast
to the accompaniment of pipes and a tambourine."
(22)
In 1534, two small French sailing vessels, commanded by a
Breton, Jacques Cartier, began exploring the
Newfoundland coast. Along with these French voyageurs, came the
"boat songs" and music known as chansons which
became a staple for both entertainment and daily work in New France,
and some would say is the source for the modern
chantey.
Thomas Moore, in a A Canadian Boat
song, writes:
Faintly as the tolls the evening chime,
Our voices keep
tune and our oars keep time,
Soon as the woods on shore look
dim,
We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn.
Row, brothers,
row, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near and the daylight
past.
In a note as quoted in Canadian Folk
Songs (1927), he further explains how he came to write
to words of this popular Canadian folk-song:
I wrote these words to an aire which our boatmen sang to us
frequently. The wind was so unfavourable that they were obliged to
row us all the way, and we were five days descending the river from
Kingston to Monteal... Our voyageurs had good voices, and sang
perfectly in tune together. The original words of the air, to which
I adapted these stanzas, begin:
Dans mon chemin j'ai recontre
Deux cavaliers tres bien
montes.
And the refrain to every verse
was:
A l'ombre d'un bois je
m'en vais jouer,
A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais
danser.
I ventured to harmonize
this air and have published it ... I have heard this simple air with
a pleasure which the finest compositions of the first masters have
never given me.
Thomas Moore wrote this in
1804, but the French verses according to J. Murray Gibbon, in
Canadian Folk Songs, indicate a much
greater antiquity. Dans mon chemin j'ai recontre will be
found in Ernest Gagnon's Chansons Populaires du
Canada under the title of J'ao trop gran'peur des
loups (I am too afraid of wolves).
While the refrain and tune in
the ballad quoted by Gagnon differs slightly from those heard
by Thomas Moore, in these folk-songs, tunes and words are readily
interchanged, very much like sea chanteys. So that, the song may
itself may be applied to conditions very different from those known
to the original poet or composer. Furthermore, the fact that
words heard by Moore in Canada are still sung in Poitou, France
confirms that the song was not native to Canada but was brought by
the early settlers and handed down from generation to generation.
The French settlement in Canada ceased early in the eighteenth
century, so that the imported chansons, of which several thousand
have been colleced, may in most cases be dated no later than
the seventeenth century. (23)
According to Stan Hugill, in
Songs Of The Sea (1977, McGraw hill),
the earliest work giving a series of work songs (without tunes) at
sea is The Complaynt Of Scotland (1549)
By Barbour. Hugill says that "two anchor songs are given, one
bowline shanty and three hauling songs for hoisting the lower
yard."
It is true that the origins of the
melodies and lyrics are also subject to varied ancestry. It is said
that many are based on the hauling cries of Elizabethan seamen.
Others are based on Anglo-Irish folk ballads, West Indian folk
songs, Civil war marching songs, Afrikaans war songs, poems, popular
songs (Sacramento, based on Stephen Foster's Camptown Races) and
riverboat songs. Sea soungs & shanties are classified according
to the type of work that they accompanied. The types include:
hauling songs which include halyard, short haul and hand over hand
shanties, heaving songs that include capstan, pumping and anchor
raising. Which category a shanty belongs to is often disputed. The
tempo of each song can vary greatly and the text alone does not
always determine type although in some cases it provides strong
likelihood.
The
basic shanties/sea-song types:
-
Short
Drag Shanty
Short drag or short haul shanties were
for tasks that required quick pulls over a relatively short period
of time, such as for work like shortening or unfurling sails.
-
Long
Drag Shanty
Long drag or halyard shanties were for
work that required more time between pulls. They were sung when
for heavy labour that went on for a long time. Perhaps work like
raising or lowering a heavy sail. This type of shanty gave the
sailors a rest in between the hauls. This type of shanty usually
has a chorus at the end of each line.
-
Capstan
Shanty
Capstan (or windlass) shanties were used
for long or repetitive tasks that needed a sustained rhythm.
Raising or lowering the anchor by winding up the heavy anchor
chain was their prime use. These are the most developed of the
work shanties.
-
Forecastle
Shanties/Ballads
These songs came were about
places visited, reminding the sailors of home or foreign lands.
Sailors enjoyed singing songs of love, adventure, pathos, famous
men, and battles.
-
Whaling Shanties
Life on a
whaler was more dangerous than on any other ship. The length of
time at sea typically lasted from two to three years. It is
no wonder that whalers had their own array of sea shanties. Songs
helped give these men the will to go on in the face of their
dreadful circumstances.
 Index
Of Sea-Songs, Ditties &
Shanties
(Lyrics, Midi-Tunes &
Images Of 16th-19th Century Sea Songs)
More Sea-Song / Shanty
Links:
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