Sailor Songs

The sailor is not as yet totally extinct, and it may be safely prophesied that he never will be. To say, as is often said, that there are no longer any sailors, is to assert a broad general principle, which, like other general principles, is partly true and partly false. There exists what we might call a domesticated breed of sailors, such as the quartermasters who steer our steam-ships, and the occasional veterans who are found among the crews of our men-of-war. The typical “Jack” of the pre-propeller age — the “packetarian,” and the able seaman of the clipper-ship fleet — has, however, utterly vanished. He was essentially a wild man, the sort of being whom the lawyers would class as ferae naturae. Civilization in its most condensed expression, the steam-engine, has driven him from the ocean, and with the exception of rare specimens preserved in such marine museums as the “Sailor’s Snug Harbor,” The Sailors’ Snug Harbor on Staten Island, New York, founded in 1833, was a charitable institution providing retirement care for aged and disabled sailors. and like places, he has been fairly exterminated. He has passed into the dusky domain of the archaeologist, and his real habits and customs will soon be forgotten. Let us, then, in the interest of archaeological science, make an effort to preserve the memory of his songs before the last man who heard them, and can give testimony in regard to them, is gone.

The present race of marine brakemen who form the crews of steam vessels can not sing. There is but one solitary song that is ever heard on board a steam-ship, and that one belongs to the least artistic class of sailor songs. The “shanty-man” — the chorister of the old packet ship — has left no successors. In the place of a rousing “pulling song,” we now hear the rattle of the steam-winch; and the modern windlass worked by steam, or the modern steam-pump, gives us the clatter of cog-wheels and the hiss of steam in place of the wild choruses of other days. Singing and steam are irreconcilable. The hoarse steam-whistle is the nearest approach to music that can exist in the hot, greasy atmosphere of the steam-engine.

The old sailor songs had a peculiar individuality. They were barbaric in their wild melody. The only songs that in any way resemble them in character are “Dixie,” and two or three other so-called negro songs by the same writer. This man, known in the minstrel profession as “Old Emmett,” Daniel Decatur Emmett (1815-1904), minstrel performer and songwriter who wrote “Dixie” in 1859. caught the true spirit of the African melodies — the lawless, half-mournful, half-exulting songs of the Kroomen. These and the sailor songs could never have been the songs of civilized men. They breathe the wild freedom of the jungle, and are as elusive as the furrow left by a ship on the trackless ocean.

Undoubtedly many sailor songs have a negro origin. They are the reminiscences of melodies sung by negroes stowing cotton in the holds of ships in Southern ports. The “shanty-men,” those bards of the forecastle, have preserved to some extent the meaningless words of negro choruses, and have modified the melodies so as to fit them for salt-water purposes. Certain other songs were unmistakably the work of English sailors of an uncertain but very remote period. Of these the once famous “Cheerly, men,” See Cheer'ly Men. is a typical specimen. They were, however, frowned upon on board American ships because of their English origin, and no American crew would ever ape the customs prevailing under the flag of an effete monarchy by singing “Cheerly, men.”

Sailor songs may be divided into two classes — pulling-songs and windlass songs. The former were used merely to aid the men, when pulling on a rope, to pull at the same precise instant. The latter were intended to beguile the men, while getting up the anchor or working the pumps, into temporary forgetfulness of their prosaic labor. As might be expected, the latter are much the more elaborate and pretentious. The one class, however, passes into the other by subtle gradations. There are pulling songs which approach so closely the structure of windlass songs that they were sometimes made to do duty at the windlass or the pump by shanty-men whose artistic consciences were somewhat dull.

All sailor songs consist of one or more lines sung by the shanty-man alone, and one or two lines sung by the men in chorus. Windlass songs always have two choruses, while pulling songs should have but one. The choruses are invariable. They are the fixed and determinating quantities of each song, while the lines sung by the shanty-man were left in a measure to his discretion. It is true that custom wedded certain lines to certain songs, but the shanty-man was always at liberty to improvise at his own pleasure. He was also permitted to slightly vary the melody of his part, and the accomplished shanty-man was master of certain tricks of vocalization which can not be reproduced in print, but which contributed vastly to the effectiveness of his singing. Those who have heard Irma Marie in Barbe Bleu may remember that in some of her songs, notably in the first act, she had a trick of slurring from a note in her proper register to another in her head voice. This was one of the favorite mannerisms of the shanty-man.

Let us suppose ourselves on board a Liverpool packet thirty years ago. The maintopsail has just been reefed, and the men are vainly trying to hoist the heavy yard, which refuses to move. Presently some one says, “Oh, give us the ‘Bowline,’” whereupon the shanty-man’s sharp clear voice is heard, the men join in the chorus, and as they sing the last syllable they haul on the halyards, and the stubborn yard yields. Verse follows verse until the yard is up, and the virtue of the pulling song has been vindicated. This is the “Bowline,” one of the purest of generic pulling songs: See Haul on the Bowline.

Another pulling song of almost equal popularity in old days was “Haul Away Joe”: See Haul Away, Joe.

These have, as is seen, but a single chorus. Their purely nautical origin is manifest, and they are undoubtedly very old. Closely resembling them, but nevertheless advancing a step in the direction of windlass songs, were those pulling songs which consisted of four lines instead of two, the words of both the choruses being the same, but the melody of each being different. Of these the two following were often heard:

And “Shallow Brown”: See Shallow Brown.

Finally, there were pulling songs with a double chorus, each chorus differing both in words and melody from the other. These were in structure precisely the same as the windlass songs, but it was very “bad form” to use them except for pulling purposes. It is one of these that is the sole surviving song which steam-ship crews ever use. They would have shown better taste had they chosen for preservation the ballad of Jean François, whoever he may have been. See Boney Was a Warrior. Alden’s original score for this song appears to contain timing inconsistencies; our transcription attempts to remain faithful to the published notation.

It was in the windlass songs that the accomplished shanty-man displayed his fullest powers and his daintiest graces. When he began a song, he usually began by singing the first chorus as an announcement of what he expected of the men, who, being thus duly warned, joined in the second chorus. He was always careful to rest his voice while the others were singing, and it was considered the proper thing for him to begin his lines so closely after each chorus as to make his first note a prolongation of the last note of the preceding chorus. His lines were expected to rhyme, but he was prudently economical of them, generally using only one line, repeated twice, for each verse.

One of the best known of the windlass songs was the “Shanandore”: See Shenandoah.

This is clearly of negro origin, for the “Shanandore” is evidently the river Shenandoah. In course of time some shanty-man of limited geographical knowledge, not comprehending that the “Shanandore” was a river, but conceiving that the first chorus required explanation, changed the second chorus. Thus the modified song soon lost all trace of the Shenandoah River, and assumed the following form, in which it was known to the last generation of sailors:

Perhaps the wildest, most mournful, of all sailor songs is “Lowlands.” The chorus is even more than usually meaningless, but the song is the sighing of the wind and the throbbing of the restless ocean translated into melody. See Lowlands.

Much care was evidently given to “Lowlands” by the shanty-men. It has often been improved. In its original form the first chorus was shorter and less striking, and the words of the second chorus were, “My dollar and a half a day.” It is to be regretted that no true idea can be given on paper of the wonderful shading which shanty-men of real genius sometimes gave to this song by their subtle and delicate variations of time and expression.

Of the same general character as “Lowlands,” though inferior to it, is the song that was usually known as “Across the Western Ocean.” There were, however, several variations of the second chorus, none of which could be called improvements. See Across the Western Ocean.

It may be assumed that the predominance of Santa Anna’s name in sailor songs is due to the Southern negroes, who still sing songs of which the name of the Mexican general is the burden. We may therefore class the “Plains of Mexico” with those sailor songs which are of African descent. General Antonio López de Santa Anna (1794–1876), Mexican military leader and president. See Santy Anna.

Another Santa Anna song is more unmistakably negro from the fact that the expression “my honey,” so common among the negroes of the South, occurs in it. It is a cheerful song, in spite of the painfully mercenary spirit expressed in the second chorus:

“Old Stormy” is a mythical character often mentioned in sailor songs. Who Stormy was, and why he received that evident nickname, even the most profound and learned shanty-men always confessed themselves unable to explain. The oldest of these songs is rather the best of them: See Old Stormalong.

Here is another “Stormy” song that contains a hint of negro origin in the word “massa,” and suggests that perhaps the legend of “Stormy” is an African rather than a nautical myth:

Quite as popular as Stormy was another mysterious person — Randso. Of this person it is alleged in an unusually coherent narrative song that “he was no sailor”; that, nevertheless, “he shipped on board of a whaler,” and as “he could not do his duty,” he was brought to the gangway, where “they gave him nine-and-thirty.” Obviously Randso was not a model for sailors. “Randso” is Alden’s spelling of the traditional character Reuben Ranzo. See Reuben Ranzo.

In the following song not only is the mysterious Randso mentioned, but a word of fathomless meaning and of very frequent recurrence in sailor songs is introduced. Perhaps Max Müller Friedrich Max Müller (1823–1900), German-British philologist at the University of Oxford, renowned for his work on comparative mythology and history of language. could attach some meaning to “hilo,” but in that case he would do more than any sailor ever did. It will not do to suggest that it is really two words — “high” and “low.” It occurs in too many other songs as an active verb to leave us any room to doubt that to “hilo” was to be, to do, or to suffer something. It can not be gathered from the insufficient data at our command whether or not the act of “hiloing” was commendable in a sailor, but from the frequency with which the fair sex was exhorted in song to “hilo,” it is evident that it was held to be a peculiarly graceful act when executed by a young girl. The syllable “yah” which appears in the first chorus of this song is not necessarily the negro “yah.” The best nautical pronunciation gave it a long sound, something like “yaw,” whereas the negro, who is popularly believed to remark “yah! yah!” whenever he is amused, really says “yoh! yoh!”

In another song, which is chiefly concerned with the celebration of the great deeds of the first Napoleon, we find the expression “hi-lon-day.” It has been held by learned nautical commentators that this word should be written “Allan Dale.” Allan-a-Dale is a wandering minstrel among Robin Hood’s Merry Men in English legend. The theory that “hi-lon-day” derives from his name is, as Alden notes, a stretch. It is a good theory, and the only fault to be found with it is the fact that there is not a particle of evidence in support of it. This song departs from the usual pattern of windlass songs in having but one chorus; but that chorus is so elaborate that it fully satisfied the artistic desires of marine vocalists. See Boney Was a Warrior.

The most pretentious, though not always the most meritorious, of windlass songs were those in which the second chorus was greatly extended, and made in some instances longer than all the rest of the song. Of these there is one in which the chorus rises and swells with the crescendo of the heaving Atlantic swell. See Away Rio.

But one sailor song has ever been tamed and made to do land service. The song of the “Railway” was caught by some negro minstrel, and with sundry improvements made to do duty as a comic song on the minstrel stage. It is still occasionally sung by street boys, who fancy that it is an Irish national air. See Paddy Works on the Railway.

It may be imagined that the specimens of sailor songs already given illustrate the highest possible achievements of man in the direction of vocal idiocy. This would be a mistake. There are songs which in elaborate unintelligibility and inanity of chorus are so appalling that it would be unkind to lay them before the sane reader. The following song is bad enough in this respect, but there are others which are infinitely worse. It has, moreover, the redeeming trait of true melody, and was once, perhaps, the most universally popular of its class. See Clear the Track.

It is not the purpose of this article to give the entire repertoire of the shanty-man. If he was an artist of any real cultivation, he had at least seventy-five songs at his tongue’s end. Those which have been given will afford a fair idea of the best of the sailor songs which will bear translation from the windlass to the columns of a magazine. It must be admitted that, in spite of the simplicity and purity of character ascribed to the sailor by novelists, not a few of the songs which he sang were highly objectionable on the score of morality. They were, however, no worse in this respect than the songs which one occasionally hears in the smoking-car of an excursion train, and were decidedly better than certain opera-bouffe songs which some ladies seem to enjoy when the song-writer’s indecency is picturesquely illustrated by a clever Frenchwoman. But both the good and the bad songs ceased when the sailor disappeared, and to revive them on the deck of an iron steam-ship would be as impossible as to bring back the Roman trireme.