Uncommon Sailor-Songs

Charlie Ipcar, a maritime writer and performer from Maine, compiled this collection of lesser-known sea songs. More information on the songbook, including a sample of the contents, can be found on Charlie's website.

From the Preface:

The mission of this songbook is to provide ready access to fifty finely crafted sailor songs that are not commonly sung by contemporary nautical singers, primarily because the songs are unfamiliar to them. Some are very old but have eluded the attention of our singers. The vast majority, however, are recently adapted for singing from vintage nautical poems and are only just beginning to be added to the sea music repertoire. Poets include Bill Adams, Edwin J. Brady, Lincoln Colcord, Burt Franklin Jenness, Harry Kemp, Henry Lawson, Hamish MacLaren, John Masefield, William McFee, Angus Cameron Robertson, and Robert Louis Stevenson; most of these poets had actual experience as sailors. Other songs are newly composed in the tradition of older sea songs, and are testament to the continuation and revitalization of nautical singing: Ron Baxter, Jon Campbell, Amos Jessop, Joe McGrath, Vince Morash, Rudy Sunde, and Bob Watson. And some are parodies of traditional sea songs: Talitha MacKenzie, and Micki Perry

Table of Contents:

1. Bound Away
2. A Pier-Head Chorus
3. Windlass Chanty
4. Yangtse River Shanty
5. Sea Traders
6. Auckland to the Bluff
7. Tasman Buster
8. Christmas at Sea
9. Tramps (Chantey for Steam)
10. High Tide at 4 A.M.
11. The Clan Alpine
12. The Chantey of the Cook
13. Sea Cook
14. Hell's Pavement
15. Mariner's Compass
16. A Ballad of the Old Navy
17. Laying on the Screw
18. Concrete and Glass
19. Frederick's of Woolloomooloo
20. Widgery Wharf
21. Wake Up Susiana
22. Merchants Island
23. Dramamine
24. Dr. Dogbody's Leg
25. The Tattooed Lady
26. Pearl Diver
27. Bumboats
28. West Indies Blues
29. Sea Dreams
30. Pirate's Own Song
31. A Ballad of John Silver
32. Wrecker's Song
33. The Salvage Men
34. Rodent Mariners
35. The Old She-Crab
36. The Tale of Lobster Barbie
37. Haul Away the Nets
38. The Spectral Fishing Fleet
39. Freedom Schooner Amistad
40. Captain Bailey's Mistake
41. Wreck of the Lady Washington
42. A Cowardly Act
43. Neptune's Daughter
44. Mother Carey
45. Swabbing Days Are Gone
46. Sail on Chalk Ginger Blue
47. The Old Tea-Clipper Days
48. The Press Room's Extra Voice
49. Mid-Watches
50. The Outside Track