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Mainsail Café / Songs / Bring 'em Down

Bring 'em Down

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A. L. Lloyd sang this shanty with Ewan MacColl on the 1962 album A Sailor's Garland. Others have reported that Bert was the author, but the sleeve notes read:

Like Bold Riley O, this tune (a Dorian one) was brought to Liverpool from the West Indies where a variant of it had served as a challenging stick-fight song. Among the vessels that adopted the tune as a shanty for heavy hauling were those running up the coast of Chile. Old-time sailors, who had a high regard for Valparaiso women, pronounced the name of the country to rhyme with "versatile"

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In Liverpool I was born,
Ch: Bring 'em down,
London is me home from home,
Ch: Bring 'em down.

In Liverpool I was bred,
Strong in the back and thick in the head.

Callao gals I do love so,
Waggle their arse with a roll and go.

Liverpool gals I do adore,
Rob yer blind and ask fer more.

When I git home from off the sea,
It's Jinny will ya marry me.

Bring 'em down it is the cry,
The bloody topmast sheave is dry.

Rock and roll her over boys,
Get this damned job over boys.

As sung by Danny Spooner

Metadata

DT Index: 933
Hauling shanty

Selected recordings:

Sailors' Songs and Sea Shanties Various artists
We'll Either Bend or Break 'Er Danny Spooner
Steady as She Goes Various artists
Songs of the Sailor Mystic Seaport Chanteymen

External links:

Mainly Norfolk entry

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