Flash Gals of the Town

A crinoline is a stiff, structured petticoat that holds out a skirt.

Shadwell Basin is a part of the London Docks opened in the 1820s. It was said to host ten almshouses build with money from Captain Cook, and it later developed into slums.

Stan Hugill gives the now famous explanation of Nelson's Blood as follows:

The phrase "Nelson's Blood refers to rum, and sailors tell a yarn about how this came to be so.

Sailing ships often carried casks of wine and rum on their long voyages. Sailors in these ships would try to broach the casks by boring a hole, inserting a feather quill, and sucking out the contents. After Nelson died at Trafalgar, to get him home without his flesh deteriorating, it is said that brother officers had him placed in a huge cask of rum (in actual fact it was brandy), The sailors, unknowingly and following their custom, bored a hole, inserted a quill, and sucked out the rum. From that time onward, to broach a cask on shipboard was "Bleedin' the Admiral" and rum was henceforth called "Nelson's Blood".

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Now come all you ladies gay, what robs sailors of their pay,
And list' while I sing this tarry tune,
When Jack Tar he comes ashore, with his gold an' silver store,
There's no one can get rid o' it so soon.

Now the first thing he demands is a fiddler to his hand,
A bottle of Nelson's Blood so stout an' warm.
And a pretty gal likewise with two dark an' rollin' eyes,
An' he'll drop his anchor an' never more will roam.

Then the landlady she comes in with her brand new crinoline,
She looks like some bright an' flashin' star,
An' she's ready to wait on him, if his pockets are lined with tin,
An' to chalk his score on the board behind the bar.

Then she calls a pretty maid, right-handed an' soft-laid,
An' up aloft they climb without much bother,
An' she shortens in her sail for a weatherin' of the gale,
An' soon in the tiers they're moored quite close together.

Then he shifted her main tack an' he caught her flat aback,
They rolled from the lee to the weather,
An' he laid her close 'longside, oh, closehauled as she would lie,

'Twas tack an' tack through hell an' stormy weather.

But his money soon was gone, an' his flash gal soon had flown,
She roamed along the Highway for another,
An' the landlady cried, "Pay yer score an' git outside,
Yer cargo's gone an' you've met stormy weather."

Then poor ol' Jack must understand that there's ships a-wantin' hands,
And to the Shadwell Basin he went down,
And he shipped away forlorn on a passage round the Horn,
Goodbye to the boys an' the flash gals of the town.

From Songs of the Sea by Stan Hugill (1977)

Categories: Forecastle Songs and Ballads

Tags: English, Lord Nelson

DT Index: 2045