Menhaden Chanteymen version

Won't you help me to raise 'em boys Ch: Hey, hey, honey Won't you help me to raise 'em boys Ch: Hey, hey, honey Won't you help me to raise 'em boys Ch: See you when the sun goes down Oh the weight's on the captain's boat Ch: Hey, hey, honey Oh the weight's on the captain's boat Ch: Hey, hey, honey Oh the weight's on the captain's boat Ch: See you when the sun goes down

Source: Menhaden Chanteymen of Beaufort, NC, *Won't You Help Me to Raise 'Em* (1990)

Gordon Bok version

Will you help me to raise 'em, boys Ch: Oh, honey Will you help me to raise 'em, boys Ch: Oh, honey Will you help me to raise 'em, boys Ch: See her when the sun goes down All the weight's on the mate boat Ch: Oh, honey All the weight's on the mate boat Ch: Oh, honey All the weight's on the mate boat Ch: See her when the sun goes down I got a long tall yellow gal Ch: Oh, honey Her name is Evalina, boys Ch: Oh, honey All the weight's on the captain boat Ch: See her when the sun goes down All the weight's on the donkey man Ch: Oh, honey All the weight's on the donkey man Ch: Oh, honey All the weight's on the donkey man Ch: See her when the sun goes down

Source: Gordon Bok, *Herrings in the Bay* (2003), from the Northern Neck Chantey Singers of Virginia

A traditional call-and-response work chantey from the American menhaden fishing industry. It was sung by crews aboard purse-seine vessels while hauling heavy nets full of menhaden to the surface by hand — slow, grueling work requiring perfectly synchronized effort from a dozen or more men working shoulder-to-shoulder in a net boat.

The tradition was carried almost entirely by African American crews working out of Reedville, Virginia and Beaufort, North Carolina, the two major centers of the menhaden industry on the East Coast. The songs draw on church music, spirituals, and blues, giving them a distinct sound quite different from deep-water shanties.

The practice of hand-hauling nets — and the chanteys that accompanied it — died out in the early 1960s when hydraulic power blocks replaced the work. The repertoire survived through groups like the Menhaden Chanteymen of Beaufort, NC, who recorded the definitive collection Won’t You Help Me to Raise ‘Em: Authentic Net Hauling Songs from an African-American Fishery (1990), and the Northern Neck Chantey Singers of Virginia (Reedville). Folk singer Gordon Bok learned the song from the latter group and recorded it on Herrings in the Bay (2003).