Fare you well, I wish you well, Ch: Hoo-raw, and fare you well. Fare you well till I return. Ch: Hoo-raw, sing fare you well. O fare you well, my bonny young gel, O fare you well, my bonny young gel. As I walked out one morning fair, It's there I met a lady fair. At her I winked, I do declare, At her I winked, I do declare. Up aloft this yard must go, Up aloft this yard must go. I thought I heard the skipper say, One more pull and then belay. Fare you well, I wish you well, Fare you well till I return.

Source: John Short, via The Shanty Book

A halyard shanty collected from the Appledore shantyman John Short by Richard Runciman Terry, and published in The Shanty Book (Part II, 1921). Terry noted that Short was his sole source, and that he had not encountered the shanty elsewhere nor found it in any other collection.

A nearly identical version appeared earlier in W.B. Whall’s Sea Songs and Shanties, where it is called “O Fare Ye Well, My Bonnie Young Girl” and described as “a favourite in London ships.” Stan Hugill published it as “Hurrah, Sing Fare Ye Well” in Shanties From the Seven Seas, crediting a Liverpool source, noting that beyond the opening verses the shantyman typically improvised freely.

The pull in this shanty falls on the second syllable of “Hurrah” (i.e., on “-raw”). It is unrelated to the capstan shanty “Goodbye, Fare Thee Well.”

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