Highland Laddie
Walkaway shanty version
Ay, ay, and away she goes,
Ch: Bonnie laddie, Hieland laddie;
Ay, ay, and away she goes,
Ch: Bonnie Hieland laddie!
'Way she goes, heels and toes,
Ch: Bonnie laddie, Hieland laddie;
Ay, ay, and away she goes,
Ch: Bonnie Hieland laddie!
This is the day we sail this way,
Ch: Bonnie laddie, Hieland laddie;
Ay, ay, and away she goes,
Ch: Bonnie Hieland laddie!
From Charles Nordhoff, Nine Years a Sailor (1857)
Were you ever in Quebec,
Ch: Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie,
Stowing timber on the deck?
Ch: My bonnie Highland laddie, oh.
Were you ever in Dundee?
There some pretty ships you'll see.
Were you ever in Merrimashee,
Where you make fast to a tree?
Were you ever in Mobile Bay,
Screwing cotton by the day?
Doerflinger writes in Songs of the Sailor and Lumberman:
Usually heard at the capstan was a perennial favorite sung by Captain James P. Barker as a walkaway shanty. It was so used in a Liverpool bark in which he served as a brassbound apprentice, the men singing it in chorus throughout when hauling away the main brace. This traditional Highland march was popular with both Yankee and British shantymen.
He goes on to give Charles Nordhoff’s version published in Nine Years a Sailor. Many Scottish ships were involved in loading lumber at Quebec and along New Brunswick’s Miramichi River.