Peter Kasin & Richard Adrianowicz
We’ll Haul & Sing Together
This is our fourth recording together,
RULER KING - Lead: Richard
This capstan shanty, also called South Australia, most likely made its appearance during the emigrant period, when thousands travelled by sailing ship to South Australia. There has been a lot of speculation about the meaning of the phrase “ruler king” in this shanty. The last line of the song is “Sheoak will be ruler king” which I take to mean if you drink too much of the stuff it rules you. Sheoak is a strong Australian beer popular in the 1870s.
Found in Stan Hugill’s Shanties from the Seven Seas. Hugill’s source was Frederick Pease Harlow’s 1962 book, Chanteying Aboard American Ships, Barre, Mass.: Barre Publishing Co. Said to have been heard aboard the AKBAR, 1875/76. It was sung off Melbourne by "Dave" at the windlass, who ...could hardly wait for the order to Heave away," before he started the home chantey that he had prepared and taught the other members of the crew the day before...."
About “sheoak”:
From the Australian National Dictionary (an Oxford University Press publication with full OED historical treatment of all distinctively Australian words, terms and usages): The 'common name' "she-oak" was applied to the casuarina tree, which scientists named (in Latin) for its leaves' resemblance to the feathers of the cassowary (a large, flightless bird of Australian and New Guinea). Its timber has a grain resembling that of oak ... but it was considered of lesser strength ... so they added the prefix "she-" ... to indicate 'weaker / inferior.'
Sheoak is also known simply as beer brewed in Australia.
Sheoak also refers to she-oak net, a safety net slung under the gangway of a ship (A nautical usage, perhaps in use in Australian ports). "1934 T. Wood Cobbers 163 The 'She-oak Net' … is to catch a man if he slips when going aboard; and the name … is in memory of She-oak beer, which used to be, and may be still, a powerful agent in making him slip." All or none of this may be related to enigmatic reference in the song!
Other versions of the song can be found in:
From SLAVE SONGS OF THE GEORGIA SEA ISLANDS, compiled by Lydia Parrish, Athens(GA): University of Georgia Press, 1992 (orig. 1942):
1888 [June 1887], Smith, Laura Alexandrine. _The Music of the Waters_. London: Kegan, Paul, Trench & Co. Smith calls it a capstan song. “I give the melody as I got it from a coloured seaman at the Home, together with a verbatim copy of his verses :
South Australia is my native home, Heave away! Heave away!
South Australia is my native home, I’m bound to South Australia
Heave away! Heave away! Heave away, you ruler king, I am bound to South Australia.
There ain't but the one thing grieves my mind, To leave my dear wife and child behind.
I see my wife standing on the quay, The tears do start as she waves to me.
When I am on a foreign shore, I'll think of the wife that I adore.
Those crosses you see at the bottom of the lines, Are only to put me in mind.
As I was standing on the pier, A fair young maid to me appeared.
As I am standing on a foreign shore, I'll drink to the girl that I adore.
For I'll tell you the truth, and I'll tell you no lie, If I don't love that girl I hope I may die.
Liza Lee, she promised me, When I returned she would marry me.
And now I am on a foreign strand, With a glass of whisky in my hand;
And I'll drink a glass to the foreign shore, And one to the girl that I adore.
When I am homeward bound again, My name I'll publish on the main.
With a good ship and a jolly crew, A good captain and chief mate, too,
Now fare thee well, fare thee well, For sweet news to my girl I'll tell.
The two Carpenter recordings have different tunes, but both put the stress on a-WAY, rather than HEAVE. And interestingly, neither of them have anything like a rolling/ruling king.
Collected from retired sailor Rees Baldwin:
Have you seen my Bowery queen Haul away, heave away
Have you seen my Bowery queen For we are bound for South Australia
Heave away, haul away Heave away, haul away For we are bound for South Australia
Way down south, where I was born
Among the fields of yellow corn
DIXIE’S ISLE - Lead: Peter
A Civil War era capstan chantey found in Frederick Pease Harlow’s Chanteying Aboard American Ships.
WAY DOWN LOW - Lead: Richard
One of the shanties collected by Professor James Taft Hatfield from Jamaican sailors on his 1886 trip from Pensacola to Nice aboard the full-rigged bark Ahkera. Professor Hatfiels’s article “Some Ninteenth Century Shanties” was published in the Journal of American Folklore, Volume 59, No. 232 (April-June, 1946). pp. 108-113: “The working-crew consisted of eight strapping Jamaican Negroes. As to their shanties*, they followed, in general, the good old American and British traditions.
“The vessel (which had stood on dry land for two previous years, and had been stripped of all its copper sheathing) leaked like a basket, and there were almost continuous sessions at the pumps; prevailing head-winds called for very frequent tacking; hauling the yards (as well as pumping) was always done to the rhythm of these songs. A few of the men were leaders in solo parts; such a one would be exhorted by his mates to “sing up a scrap!”
*This spelling corresponds to the universal pronounciation, and is preferred by high authorities. [This note was writted by Hatfield. Not sure what he means by “high authorities” but I prefer the spellling of shanty for the very same pronounciation reason - R.A.]
As with many collections of shanties this article only shows one verse. The version I sing was put together using floating verses from other songs..
JOHN BULLY - Lead: Peter
Peter found this Bahamian boat launching chantey in the Alan Lomax recording “Bahamas 1935: Chanteys and Anthems from Andros and Cat Island” - sung by a group of men from Andros Island. Recorded at Elisha Porter’s house, Grantstown, Nassau, Bahamas in August, 1935.
Alan Lomax’s notes on the chantey describe it as a launching song sea chantey sung in anthem style about the boat builder John Edgecombe, of legendary strength and power. It mentions two of the vessels John Bully built, The Liza and The Rosa, and indicates that one aspect of his heroic and sometimes dangerous manliness was that he was disinterested, taking only a penny or two for his boats and his labor. As told to Lomax by an unidentified informant in Andros in the 1970s, “His name was John Edgecombe, but they nicknamed him John Bully because he was big and strong. When he was ten years old, his daddy had fix him, cut open the flesh of his arm and put a dead man bone there. He could pick up a dinghy boat and carry him on his head. When he get mad you could see that dead man bone raisin’ up in there. Don’t tell him to stay off the floor if he go dance. Any partner he want dance with, you better let him, don’t care whose woman she is. You can’t do him nothin’. He’ll broke up the dance and take the guitar and put it on your head for a hat. One time he clear out a whole dance, grabbin’ men and throwin’ them out the door till he standin’ on the floor, him one alone. Like Samson, who took a jawbone of an ass and slew ten thousand. John Bully was big and tall and strong and bad, but when he die, he die pious. All his life he was a carpenter, used to build vessel, big boat, schooner …”
Later in the notes, Lomax wrote, “With the failure of the sponge industry in 1938, the rhyming style declined sparply and is very seldom, if ever, heard in the Bahamas today.”
HERRING THE KING - Lead: Richard
The words to this Irish fishing song are traditional. The air used is An Bruach ‘na Carraige Baine (The Bank of the White Rocks). The version sung here is from J.N. Healy’s Irish Songs of the Sea. Unfortunately, Healy gives no useful information about the provenance of this song.
The air, under the title The Brink of the White Rocks can be found in The Ancient Music of Ireland, An edition comprising the three collections by Edward Bunting originally published in 1796, 1809 and 1840.
A version of the fishing song was published in Horncastle’s Music of Ireland, I, 1844. The first line of the chorus, Thugamar fein an samhrad linn (we have brought the summer with us) is also the title of an ancient air, the earliest version of which can be found in Burk Thumoth’s Twelve Scotch and Twelve Irish airs, London, circa 1745, entitled Hugar mu Fean.
RATTLIN’ WINCHES - Lead: Peter
UK songwriter and performer composed this in the style of a traditional shanty. Peter’s version is a bit closer to the English group “Fishermen’s Friend” melody and added lyrics. The folk process at work! We thank Ken Stephens for his kind permission to record this.
GOOD MORNING LADIES ALL - Lead: Richard
This was collected by Cecil Sharp from English shantyman John Short, who had the nickname of Yankee Jack because he sailed in so many American ships. The shanty has the feel of a cotton-screwing song and the phrase “good morning ladies all” surely points to an Afro-American origin.
The Project Short Sharp Shanties: Tom and Barbara Brown of Combe Martin discovered the legacy of John Short, the manuscripts of Cecil Sharp in the Vaughn Williams Memorial Library kept in London and they began a project to record all the songs of John Short interpreted by various artists. They produced three compilations. Some of the sixty songs are familiar versions, others rarer, and many of the songs represent a very early period in the life of shanty-singing.
THE SANDY BOY - Lead, Richard
Found in the original hardcover version of Stan Hugill’s Shanties from the Seven Seas. Hugill got the song from Captain S. Sternvall’s book Sång Under Segel, where it is called a ganspells (capstan) shanty. Probably only heard by black singers in ships with chequer-board crews, this most likely started out as a riverman’s song.
THE LIMERICK SHANTY - Lead: Peter
A Swedish capstan shanty sung entirely in English, from the unabridged hardcover edition of Stan Hugill’s Shanties from the Seven Seas. This one also came from Captain S. Sternvall’s book Sång Under Segel*. The first three verses are found in Hugill, with other verses from various sources. Peter made up the verse about the ship’s cook.
*Hugill notes that there are a number of unusual English-worded shanties sung by Scandinavian seamen. Many so-called ‘sea-songs,’ popular ashore in England in Victoria’s time but rarely sung at sea by British seamen, and certainly never as shanties, also appear to have been sung by Scandinavian and German seamen at the capstan.
POOR LITTLE LIZA - Lead, Richard
Learned from the singing of Bob Walser. Bob recorded this on his CD Outward Bound, Songs from the James Madison Carpenter Collection. The shanty was collected from former seaman J.S. Scott in London.
Born in Booneville, Mississippi, James Madison Carpenter studied sea shanties for his PhD thesis at Harvard, receiving a fellowship to continue his research in the British Isles, which he did from 1929 to 1935. The collection was discovered at a desk in an office in Minnesota. Carpenter never found a publisher but now a team of scholars under the direction of Dr. Julia Bishop is editing the collection for eventual publication, Bob Walser being the shanty person on the Carpenter team. The collection is held by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
AROUND CAPE HORN - Lead, Peter
From The Book of Navy Songs, The Trident Society, 1926. Though chanteys were not sung aboard naval vessels, this song was taught to cadets in order to learn about traditional chanteys and life at sea.
A GREAT BIG SEA - Lead: Richard
This sea song can be found in G.S. Doyle, St. John’s Newfoundland, Old Time Songs of Newfoundland. The music of Newfoundland consists almost entirely of folk songs descriptive of the daily life and customs of the people: life on the sea, fishing, sealing, whaling and lumbering.
During the November 1, 1755 Lisbon, Portugal earthquake, Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland, was subject to exceptionally high seas. This event was accompanied by an unusual phenomenon which drained the basin of Bonavista Harbour. After a ten-minute period the harbour water returned, overflowing parts of the community. The event was stated to become the subject of the popular Newfoundland folk song A Great Big Sea Hove in Long Beach. Geologically, this event is very important because it shows beyond a doubt that an earthquake which occurs in the eastern Atlantic Ocean can create a tsunami which can cross the Atlantic and move into the shores of eastern North America. This tsunami also went through the islands in the Caribbean, with twenty-one foot waves being reported. An ocean crossing wave that travels a long distance from its source, is called a teletsunamic event. It is possible that the song may also actually refer to a Trinity Bay location, as there is a Long Beach about ten miles south of Bay de Verde, immediately north of Northern Bay.
ALOUE - Lead, Peter
A French chantey learned from Bay Area uilleann piper, flute player and singer Cathy Chilcott.
POOR LUCY ANNA - Lead: Richard
From Stan Hugill’s Shanties from the Seven Seas. Hugill felt that this shanty was very seldom used except where black sailors formed a considerable portion of the crew. The shanty can also be found in Roger D. Abrahams’ Deep the Water, Shallow the Shore, Three Essays on Shantying in the West Indies, where it is called Oh Louisiana.
WILL WATCH - Solo: Richard
A forebitter, from Captain W.B. Whall’s Sea Songs and Shanties, 1927. Whall notes that “Will Watch, the bold smuggler, was a favourite sea hero fifty years ago. Besides being celebrated in song, he had a play founded on his exploits. The date of this composition I do not know, probably about 1820. It is quoted by Frederick Marryat in his works (1792-1848), and I have a version of it in an American song book. I fear it would sound out of place now alongside he music-hall twaddle usually heard; but in the days when a song, to be appreciated at sea, had to be very professional or very sentimental. This one, somewhat combining the two, was a favourite.”
DO LET ME LONE, SUSAN - Lead: Peter
A rare halyard chantey found in Stan Hugill’s Shanties from the Seven Seas. Hugill learned it from his West Indies source, Harding (known as the Barbadian Barbarian). Harding often sang it at halyards in both British and American ships. Peter does not do it on this recording but a common trick of black shantymen was that of jumping to a higher key every alternate verse.
ROW, MICHAEL, ROW - Lead: Peter
A Georgia Sea Islands version of the slave rowing chantey Michael, Row the Boat Ashore. Collected by Guy and Candie Carawan from the Bligen Family of John’s Island, South Carolina, and published in Carawan’s collection of songs, stories and photographs, Ain’t You Got a Right to the Tree of Life?: The People of John’s Island, South Carolina - Their Faces, Their Words, and Their Songs.
FINE TIME O’ DAY - Lead: Peter
A rowing shanty found in Roger Abrahams Deep the Water, Shallow the Shore: Three Essays on shantying in the West Indies.
SEBASTOPOL - Lead: Richard
This is an example of a march taken to sea and adapted as a capstan shanty. It was popular from the Crimean War* onwards. The city involved was actually Sevastopol but the British pronounced it Sebastopol and when the shanty was composed the incorrect name stuck. According to Hugill, the shanty was probably adapted by seamen in the early steam troopships, which apparently carried a fair amount of square sail as well. This meant that the shanties were kept alive a bit longer because it was an unwritten rule aboard these early sail-rigged steamers that steam power was not to be used when setting sail.
*The Crimean War (October 1853-February 1856). The war was fought mainly on the Crimean Peninsula between the Russians and the British, French, and Ottoman Turkish, with support from January,1855 by the army of Sardinia-Piedmont. The war arose from the conflict of great powers in the Middle East and was more directly caused by Russian demands to exercise protection over the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman sultan. Another major factor was the dispute between Russia and France over the privileges of the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches in the holy places in Palestine.
TEXAS SAILOR COMING DOWN - Lead: Peter
Peter learned this from a recording of Phillip (Ebenezer) Dixon and chorus, collected and recorded in 1939 by folklorists Melville and Frances Herskovits. This was reissued in 1998 on the Rounder label CD Peter Was A Fisherman: The 1939 Trinidad Field Recordings of Melville and Frances Herskovitz, Vol. 1, sadly out of circulation. This was sung by “mas” (masquerade) sailor bands during Carnival.
ROLLING HOME BY THE SILVERY MOON - Lead: Richard
An English shore song adapted for use at the capstan. The version we do is from Stan Hugill’s Shanties from the Seven Seas. This is a drinking song of which there are numerous versions. There’s the related song “I’ve Got Sixpence” that shares part of the same chorus. An older folk song version, circa 1891 is called “The Jolly Shilling.” The Six Pence song also has been widely used as a cadence marching song in the US Military basic training during both World Wars. The “sixpence” bit may trace back to a regimental song of the Royal Engineers - pay for a Red Coat in the British Army in the 18th century was maintained at sixpence a week.
I’VE GOT SIXPENCE
I’ve got sixpence
Jolly, jollysix pence
I’ve got sixpence to last me all my life
I’ve got two sixpence to spend
And twopence to lend
And twopence to send home to my wife - poor wife
Chorus:
No cares have I to grieve me
No pretty little girls to deceive me
I’m happy as a lark, believe me
As we go rolling, rolling home
Rolling home, rolling home
By the light of the silvery moon
Happy is the day when we line up for our pay
As we go rolling, rolling home
I’ve got fourpence, etc.
I’ve got twopence, etc.
I’ve got no pence
There are versions from various sections of the American military where you see the lines:
Happy is the day when the soldier gets his pay
Happy is the day when the sargeant gets his pay
Happy is the day when the WACs get their pay (WAC: Womens Army Corp)
Happy is the day when the Air Force gets their pay
Camping song versions have:
Happy is the day when the counselors get their pay
Happy is the day when the counselors go away
Happy is the day when the campers go away