Run with the Bullgine
(Bulgine Run / Let the Bullgine Run)
We'll run from night till morning
ChorusO run, let the bullgine run. Way-yah, oo... Oh run, let the bullgine run.We'll run from Dover to Calais. We've sailed away from Mobile Bay. We gave three cheers and away we went. Now up aloft this yard must go. We're homeward bound for Liverpool docks.
Oh we'll run all night till the morning.
ChorusOh run, let the Bullgine run. Way-yah, oh-I-oh, run, let the Bullgine run.Oh we sailed all day to Mobile Bay. Oh we sailed all night across the Bight. Oh we'll run from Dover to Callis. Oh drive her captain, drive her. Oh captain make her nose blood. She's a dandy packet and a flier too. With a dandy skipper, and a dandy crew. Oh we'll run all night till the morning.
This shanty is clearly of African-American origin.
Bullgine is American slang for engine, as seen in Clear the Track. Laura Alexandrine Smith, British author of the 1888 collection The Music of the Water, seems to have misheard “Let the Bull Chimes Run”. She gives no explanation to this “favourite pumping song”.
The Great Australian Bight, in Runciman’s variant, is the large open bay to the southwest of the continent.