They sound like prehistoric oddities, which is part of the appeal. Simplistic in structure, they are deliberately repetitive and full of ideas and references that feel very, very far from life right now. Aside from the word
Wellerman, they’re full of harpoons and pierheads and the specifics of butchering whales; the most recognizable lyrics are lines about 'rounding the Cape' and the love of bonny brown-haired lasses. Sea shanties are also resiliently uncool. They’re songs about whaling and strong winds, and they sound the way a bowl of New England clam chowder looks: imprecise, sort of lumpy, and, not to put too fine a point on it, very white.... One person is the song leader, setting the pace and singing the verses, but the engine of the song is in the repeating chorus that everyone sings together over and over again. They are unifying, survivalist songs, designed to transform a huge group of people into one collective body, all working together to keep the ship afloat. Right now, it’s not safe to gather in groups. Every news story is about division, deadlock, anger, and the massive gulf between the left and the right.... It’s hard to think of a more unexpectedly appropriate musical form for a bunch of people yearning for physical (and political and spiritual) connection."
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It ain't the Sloop John B, but it's catchy.
"Simplistic in structure, they are deliberately repetitive and full of ideas and references that feel very, very far from life right now."
Heard all sorts of similar things from my DIs when doing close-order drill.
National Lampoon predicted this trend decades ago. I forget the cut on the album.
Show me the way to go home.
I'm tired and I wanta go to bed,
Well, I had a little drink about an hour ago and
it went right to my head.
It Makes Total Sense We’re All Into Sea Shanties Now" (New York Magazine).
Blacks across the land are asking, "Are we all?"
"There's nothing to throw away from Kujira except his voice."
I spent a lot of time listening to Songs of the Sea by the Norman Luboff Choir when I was about 10. It was a Columbia LP that came with the hi-fi.
"One person is the song leader, setting the pace and singing the verses, but the engine of the song is in the repeating chorus that everyone sings together over and over again. They are unifying, survivalist songs, designed to transform a huge group of people into one collective body, all working together to keep the ship afloat."
Groups and teams have done this for decades. Sports teams on busses going to or coming from the road game. Band kids doing the same. Fraternities on a road trip. Grunts in basic training. Etc etc etc. Everyone sings the chorus but the individual rhymer changes each time. When you come up with your ditty, you go, with either approving or mocking results. Kind of like the bye-ku's and other poetic crimes around here, only without the song.
:Yawn:
Get back to me when you've caught up with the Navy.
FCCS(SW/AW) Jeff Weimer, USN (ret)
Arghhh, that warms me heart.
Crack Emcee has the right observation at 2:46, and there are lots of other people who aren’t black and yet who aren’t into sea shanties.
Some thread music
Bernard Bolan Not Many Fish is the best sea song.
Bolan is an Australian lawyer.
Better performance on his album (this is live).
I love this song and have it in my spotify playlist because of the authentic details, it’s sung in the form described acapella.
O the year was Seventeen Seventy-Eight
How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now
A letter of marque came from the king
To the scummiest vessel I’ve ever seen
[Chorus]
God damn them all
I was told we’d cruise the seas for American gold
We’d fire no guns, shed no tears
Now I’m a broken man on a Halifax pier
The last of Barrett’s Privateers
O Elcid Barrett cried the town
How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now
For twenty brave men all fishermen who
Would make for him the Antelope’s crew
[Chorus]
The Antelope sloop was a sickening sight
How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now
She’d a list to the port and her sails in rags
And the cook in the scuppers with the staggers and jags
[Chorus]
On the King’s birthday we put to sea
How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now
Ninety-one days to Montego Bay
Pumping like madmen all the way
[Chorus]
On the ninety-sixth day we sailed again
How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now
When a great big Yankee hove in sight
With our cracked four-pounders we made to fight
[Chorus]
The Yankee lay low down with gold
How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now
She was broad and fat and loose in stays
But to catch her took the Antelope two whole days
[Chorus]
Then at length she stood two cables away
How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now
Our cracked four-pounders made awful din
But with one fat ball the Yank stove us in
[Chorus]
Now here I lay in my twenty-third year
How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now
It’s been six years since we sailed away
And I just made Halifax yesterday
God damn them all.
[Chorus]
I especially like "Wreck of the Ella Fitzgerald".
White millennials and Xers thinking that what they are interested in is what everybody is interested in, because it's what they see on Tik Tok.
Heck, Rennies have been singing shanties a lot longer than these kids have been alive. Ain't nothing new, it's just being broadcast on Tik Tok.
I would post some songs from the American Revolution, but I don't want Google to ban me.
A cover of Bolan is pretty good, with printed lyrics, here.
She also gets right that the last chord of the chorus is minor (which inexpicably Bolan didn't do in the live performance. He did on his album).
What you mean “we” NY lady?
We're all into sea chanties?
Sounds like the domain of uber-hipsters.
Btw, the ads now show up just above the post so it looks like part of the post itself.
They were English work songs that were taken up by the sailors of many nations. The content of the verses didn't have to make sense, the song leader was expected to improvise.
Blacks across the land are asking, "Are we all?"
The Dems will get back to you on that in 2022. Mark your calendar.
I don't know about the white part. I was pretty impressed by the diversity of crews as described in "Moby Dick." Queegqueeg, the American Indian, the African and the East Indian Ahab's whaling boat had the highest share and most respected positions as harpooners. I'd thought some of the nonsense words originally were words in non-European languages.
We sang songs on the M/V Joseph Franz, S/S RC Norton and the M/V WW Holloway. Sky Pilot and the Lion sleeps tonight. I think it was the empty cargo holds that encouraged such behavior. One of my buds who crewed a windjammer said the songs were used to coordinated the pulling of the lines when hoisting sails. Sounds reasonable.
gspencer said...
Heard all sorts of similar things from my DIs when doing close-order drill.
They served the same function. A lot of jobs during the age of sail needed to be done in unison and shantys were a way of keeping people in sync and at a prescribed rhythm, much like your DI's cadence calls.
“ Queegqueeg, the American Indian...”
Queequeeg is a South Pacific Islander.
Barry Sanders 20 nailed it.
Further - Have no men other than 'whites' gone to sea? Did Michael Jackson know how to sing?
The PC prism of color automatically injected into all discourse is just so tedious.
Who was driving the car in the bottom video?
The article asserts that in the past month or so, spurred by a Scottish musician named Nathan Evans and others, sea shanties have become increasingly popular on TikTok and then shared widely on other platforms.
Of course, no evidence is given that these have become increasingly popular or that they have been shared widely on any other platforms, and the highest number of people tweeting about these was 54.7k, not a bad number but not really indicative of a growing internet-wide trend.
Evidence is sooo 2010's...
By the way, if you like the song, check out the movie "Fisherman's Friends," based on a true story about a group of fishermen from Cornwell, England who had a hit record (in the UK, anyhow) singing old sea shanties.
I can't believe the thread is this long and no one has mentioned The Decemberists "Mariner's Revenge Song."It's like a whaling chanty crossed with a ballad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Sw61oITuts
Um ... yeah ... we're all like totally into sea shanties now.
Maybe we really are two countries.
@Althouse, you have a good memory. I had to look it up because I was certain that there was a Native American harpooner. And I was right -- Tashtego.
"imprecise, sort of lumpy, and, not to put too fine a point on it, very white"
You can call four (or is it five?) part vocal harmony a lot of things, but "imprecise" isn't one of them. If nothing else, the singers have to be precise (not sharp or flat) in their singing or it sounds like a complete mess. Also, not to put too fine a point on it, many "non-white" musical styles use vocal harmony and call and response.
"They served the same function. A lot of jobs during the age of sail needed to be done in unison and shantys were a way of keeping people in sync and at a prescribed rhythm, much like your DI's cadence calls."
It also served to control breathing.
Is Stan Rogers going to finally get his due?
Didn't field slaves also sing call-and-response to organize the work?
Um, I hate it when purported adults use "um" in their prose. Much less in their headlines. Geez.
That said... my 17-year-old son, the polar opposite of a hipster and my one libertarian child, God bless him, did in fact start listening to sea chanties this year (a shanty is a crudely built shelter, a chanty is a song). I think this means I need to check up on the rest of his social media pretty damn fast.
I've taken up cross country skiing. That sport is so white! Pretty much all your snowy, icy sports are really white (no pun intended), probably because they originated in countries with long, cold winters & those tend to be countries where a lot of white people live.
No, wait, it has to be racism. Racism! Of course it's racism! How could I be so foolish as to believe it could be due to anything else?
I'm not going to get my social credit score dinged because at first I said that there was a non-racist explanation for winter sports being so popular among whites, am I?
Dylan wrote When The Ship Comes In in anticipation of this moment
I saw Elon Musk post a sea shanty meme today on twitter and I couldn't figure out where it was coming from, but it's Elon, so I figured he was onto something.
Then I find this post from you Ann, and off down the rabbit hole I went. I've loved sea shanties since hearing them at a summer camp around 10.
This almost makes me want to get tik tok.
I am imagining the late, great Robert Shaw as Capt. Quint: "Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies . . ."
“Crack Emcee has the right observation at 2:46, and there are lots of other people who aren’t black and yet who aren’t into sea shanties.“
Black railroad workers had the Gandy Dancer chants to tell them when to lift a rail and how far to carry it. Beautiful to listen to.
"Farewell and Adieu" has a number of hits on youtube. There's one with period paintings, ships, battles, portraits. Robert Shaw. Great sound. And if you look at that a couple of times, some kind of ago cues up some others.
So many modern singers use a husky, whispery voice that's so in vogue, my guess is that part of the appeal of the chanties is simply the full throated singing style - it's a much richer sound.
"So many modern singers use a husky, whispery voice that's so in vogue, my guess is that part of the appeal of the chanties is simply the full throated singing style - it's a much richer sound."
Same with so many actors these days.
I think they confuse whispering with being dramatic.
It's annoying.
Thank goodness for closed captioning.
The trio - now duo - "Schooner Fare" has been profitably recording in this genre since Carter was president.
They're not all positive and uplifting. Several years ago in a men's chorus, we sang one called "What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor?"
Let's just say the options offered were not favorable to the sailor.
One of the other harpooners was an American Indian from a Massachusetts tribe. I just figured people would remember Queegqueeg so didn't mention his ethnicity.
Chris ...
Wherever I may roam
On land or see or foam
You will always hear me singing this song
Show me the way to go home.
And ten there is the always popular
What do you do with a drunken sailor
What do you do with a drunken sailor
What do you do with a drunken sailor early in the morning.
Shave his belly with a rusty razor
Save his belly with a rusty razor
Shave his belly with a rusty razor
Early in the morning
And repeat as long as you know or can think up things to do
Drake's Drum:
https://youtu.be/vcVPwR0JeXA
Sea Shanties (or more properly, sea CHANTYs) exist because in the era before steam, "power" came from muscles. Generally HUMAN muscles. To raise the sail or to raise the anchor, it took a LOT of STRONG men working precisely together. What better way to get all the men to pull exactly together than to get everybody singing, or following along, a rhythmic song? The majority of "sea chanties" are Irish, so almost any Irish folk singer had dozens. Seamus Kennedy, or Liam Clancy, or Tommy Makem, or the Irish Rovers.
TickTock said...
And ten there is the always popular
...
And repeat as long as you know or can think up things to do
"Put him the the cabin with the captain's daughter"
"Put him in a lifeboat until he's sober" .. the implication being that he was in the lifeboat being towed BEHIND the ship...
Blogger Deevs said...
Is Stan Rogers going to finally get his due?
What the Clancy Brothers were to Ireland, Stan Rogers was to Canada. He was the epitome of the Canadian sailor, and wrote songs about both the east coast and the west. A Canadian National Treasure.
If you're not familiar with his work, here are a couple of my favorites.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fhop5VuLDIQ&ab_channel=MinistryofStabbing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIwzRkjn86w&ab_channel=bytor21122112
And the Youtube sidebar has lots of Stan Rogers (and similar) songs.
J Melcher said...
The trio - now duo - "Schooner Fare" has been profitably recording in this genre since Carter was president.
The best example of THEIR work was "The Day of the Clipper".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWF7Jaje-3g&ab_channel=MyMoppet52
Ghosts of Cape Horn - Gordon Lightfoot
Leora was correct, she wasn't saying Queequueg was the Amarican Indian, she just didn't recall Tashtego was the American Indian's name.
Tashtego was the American Indian, Daggoo was African. Queequeeg, Tashtego, and Daggoo were the harpooners.
without taking the time to read all the comments, has anyone mentioned a fun movie streaming now titled Fisherman's Friend about a true story of English commercial fisherman who sing while they work, continuing on after hours in the local pub (filmed in the same town mas Doc Martin in Cornwall). A traveling music producer hears them and gets them to record songs which eventually make it to the top ten pop charts in Great Britain.
There seems to be revival of interest in Regency romances set in the 1820's as well. Possibly connected to the Netflix Bridgerton series but I think underway before.
Back in 1979 Arlo Guthrie gave sea shanties the "Alice's Restaurant" treatment: The Ballad of Reuben Clamzo and His Strange Daughter In the Key of A.
What about herring?
My personal favorite sea song, not sure if it is technically a "shanty", is "The Shoals of Herring" especially as sung by Ewan McColl
https://youtu.be/6Ov81aogaxg
I used to have a great aunt who was a professor of music at Columbia and had some sort of gig with Folkways Records. We got most everything they published and I still have several disks of Ewan MacColl. Some with, some without, Peggy Seeger.
Wonderful rough, craggy, voice.
I also have several Folkways albums of protest songs from the 50s by Pete Seeger with and without the other Almanac Singers.
But no record player to play them on.
As was pointed out in A Mighty Wind, Moses Asch showed that it was possible to make a lot of money from folksinging.
John Henry
Does "A Shantyman's Life" count?
As performed by Dave Van Ronk here:
https://youtu.be/6URSTDwtG4k
Another song I first learned from Peter LaFarge's "As Long as the Grass Shall Grow". Yup, folkways.
John Henry
Just watched Fisherman's Friends. A delightful romp, with Englishmen singing sea shantys aplenty.
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