Blood Red Roses (song) - Mainsail Café

A. L. Lloyd sings the song as lead shantyman in the 1956 movie Moby Dick.

William Doerflinger's version comes from an 1893 manuscript collection by Nathaniel Silsbee of Cohasset, Massachusetts. The earliest printed record of the tune was entered by Captain Adams at the halyards of a U.S. ship (On Board the "Rocket", 1879). Doerflinger notes:

The "bunch of roses" symbolized Napoleon. I doubt that the [Moby Dick] movie version, with a "blood red roses" chorus, is authentic.

In fact, Lloyd likely adopted the specific line from a scrap couplet quoted by Stan Hugill:

Come down with your pretty posy
Come down with your cheeks so rosy

Sting performs the song on the 2006 album "Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys".

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Oh, yes, my lads, we'll roll a-lee,
Ch: Come down, you bunch of roses, come down.
We'll soon be far a-way from sea,
Ch: Come down, you bunch of roses, come down

Oh, you pinks and poses,
Come down, you bunch of roses, come down
Oh, you pinks and poses,
Come down, you bunch of roses, come down

Oh, what do yer s'pose we had for supper?
Black-eyed beans and bread and butter.

Oh Poll's in the garden picking peas.
she's got fine hair way down to her knees.

I went downstairs and peeked through a crack
And saw her staling a kiss from Jack.

I grabbed right hold of a piece of plank
and ran out quick and gave her a spank.

From Songs of the Sailor and Lumberman by William Main Doerflinger (1951, '72, '91)

Our boots and clothes are all in pawn
Ch: Go down, you blood red roses, Go down.
And its flamin' drafty 'round Cape Horn,
Ch: Go down, you blood red roses, Go down.

Ch: Oh, you pinks and posies,
Go down, you blood red roses, Go down.

My dear old mother said to me,
My dearest son, come home from sea.

It's 'round Cape Horn we all must go
'Round Cape Horn in the frost and snow.

You've got your advance, and to sea you'll go
To chase them whales through the frost and snow.

It's 'round Cape Horn you've got to go,
For that is where them whalefish blow.

It's growl you may, but go you must,
If you growl too much your head they'll bust.

Just one more pull and that will do
For we're the boys to kick her through.