Mobile Bay is a popular, versatile heaving shanty and one of the few to have two shantyman voices for the solo lines (see also: Billy Boy). It was often sung at the windlass, capstan or pumps, especially if substituting the word "haul" for "heave" or "pump" depending on the job. Stan Hugill explains that it most likely began as a cotton hoosiers' song in the Gulf of Mexico ports. It was also used as a halyard shanty with pulls in the chorus on the words John and haul.
Ferris Tozer gave an early, complex rendition that involves the two solo voices in Sailors' Songs or "Chanties". Stan Hugill also follows this pattern, giving nine verses in Shanties from the Seven Seas. Joanna Colcord's fragment was short and simple.