cryowizard (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cryowizard) wrote2007-09-17 12:24 am
cryowizard) wrote2007-09-17 12:24 am
Sea shanties
I love sea shanties.
What is it about traditional English seafarers' songs that appeals to me so much? I don't know, but one of the first songs I have ever learned was Drunken Sailor, a capstan song, courtesy of my parents playing it off an old Paul Robson note collection. I think the fact that most of them are sang by a whole bunch of people at once adds to the appeal.
While looking for this stuff around on the Net, I came across a crew called The Seadogs. They have a CD out called "Paddy West School Of Seamanship", which lists some of the most popular shanties, like Nelson's Blood, Blow The Man Down, South Australia, Liverpool Judies, Ten Thousand Miles, Homeward Bound, Leaving Liverpool. Not bad at all.
And no - Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest (Yo, Ho, Ho and a bottle of rum) is not an English traditional song. It was picked up by R.L. Stevenson from a book by Charles Kingsley, and then was later expanded by other people and made into a musical piece.
What is it about traditional English seafarers' songs that appeals to me so much? I don't know, but one of the first songs I have ever learned was Drunken Sailor, a capstan song, courtesy of my parents playing it off an old Paul Robson note collection. I think the fact that most of them are sang by a whole bunch of people at once adds to the appeal.
While looking for this stuff around on the Net, I came across a crew called The Seadogs. They have a CD out called "Paddy West School Of Seamanship", which lists some of the most popular shanties, like Nelson's Blood, Blow The Man Down, South Australia, Liverpool Judies, Ten Thousand Miles, Homeward Bound, Leaving Liverpool. Not bad at all.
And no - Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest (Yo, Ho, Ho and a bottle of rum) is not an English traditional song. It was picked up by R.L. Stevenson from a book by Charles Kingsley, and then was later expanded by other people and made into a musical piece.
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"Dead Man's Chest is a tiny isle that forms part of the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea. Local history and folklore claims that pirate Edward Teach, known as Blackbeard, punished a mutinous crew by marooning them on Dead Man's Chest, which has high cliffs and no water and is inhabited by pelicans and snakes. Each sailor was given a cutlass and a bottle of rum.
Teach's hope was that the pirates would kill each other, but when he returned after a month he found 15 men had survived. This would explain the verse: "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest. Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"
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