Well the thing that first put the hearts in a flutter, Were her Balmoral boots as she cruised the gutter, Down the Strand. (×4)
ChorusI wish I was with Nancy! Aye yo, aye yo, On the second floor with two bob more I'd live and die with Nancy, aye yo, aye yo, I'd live and die with Nancy.
O I wish that I was in the land of cotton, Tickling up the old girls bottom, Down the Strand. (×4)
(Chorus)
We're outward bound from Nancy dear, Farewell ye girls, we'll be back next year. Down the Strand. (×4)
(Chorus)
But when we reach Columbia's shore Of them pretty girls we'll think no more Of the Strand. (×4)
(Chorus)

Source: Collected by Cecil Sharp from the singing of John Short, Watchet, April 1914

This capstan shanty is a parody of Daniel Emmett’s “I Wish I Was in Dixie’s Land” (1859), adapted by music hall comedian Frank Hall (Herbert Stewart, 1836-1898) and first published in 1861. It was performed in the music halls by E.W. Mackney, with the London Strand serving as the setting, a street well known in Victorian times for its lively street life.

Cecil Sharp collected it in April 1914 from John Short (“Yankee Jack”), a sailor from Watchet, Somerset, who sang it as a capstan shanty. Sharp did not publish it in his lifetime. The second verse (“I wish I was in the land of cotton”) parodies the original “Dixie” lyric more closely. Stan Hugill noted that all shanty versions were “distinctly ribald,” and vouched that its popularity lasted into modern times.