Get Up, Jack! John, Sit Down!
(Jolly Roving Tar)
Oh, the ships will come and the ships will go,
As long as waves do roll,
The sailor lad, likewise his dad,
He loves the flowing bowl.
A lass ashore we do adore,
One that is plump and round, round, round.
When the money is gone, it's the same old song,
Get up, Jack! John, sit down!
ChorusSinging, hey! laddie, ho! laddie, Swing the capstan 'round, 'round, 'round, When the money is gone it's the same old song, Get up, Jack! John, sit down!I go and take a trip in a man-o'-war To China or Japan, In Asia, there are ladies fair Who love the sailorman. When Jack and Joe palavers, And buy the girls a gown, gown, gown. When the money is gone it's the same old song, Get up, Jack! John, sit down!
(Chorus)When Jack is ashore he beats his way Towards some boarding-house: He's welcome in with his rum and gin, And he's fed with pork and scouse. For he'll spend and spend and never offend, But he'll lay drunk on the ground, ground, ground. When my money is gone it's the same old song: Get up, Jack! John, sit down!
(Chorus)When Jack is old and weatherbeat, Too old to roustabout, In some rum-shop they'll let him stop, At eight bells he's turned out. Then he cries, he cries up to the skies: I'll soon be homeward bound, bound, bound. When my money is gone it's the same old song: Get up, Jack! John, sit down!
(Chorus)
Source: Collected by John Lomax in *American Ballads and Folk Songs* from John Thomas, a Welsh sailor aboard the *Philadelphia*, 1896
Written for the 1885 expansion of Old Lavender, a popular New York stage comedy by lyricist Edward Harrigan and composer David Braham. The song entered oral tradition quickly and was widely sung as a forebitter. The title phrase was a common cry from a boarding-house landlord or landlady when a sailor had spent his last penny ashore: his seat given to another paying customer, he was sent back to sea.
This song and Homeward Bound share at least a verse in most print versions, showing the kind of cross-pollination common among forebitters of the era.