When I used to work upon the Levee, Many happy darkies there you see: Cotton coming in so very heavy: Oh! jolly! there was lots of work for me: Black man hauling in the cargo: Sun am very hot upon the head; When he done, he dance a jolly jargo: Rum tum! on the banjo, and then to bed!
To my oakum, to my chokum, Oh! Pompey, can't you pick a peck of oakum? Ah! ah! ah! golly! aint the Levee-worker free!
Working on the cotton boat, ten shilling a day. Johnny, can't you pick upon the banjo: Oh, me! oh, my! mamma, mamma, mamma, why don't hear the baby cry? Oh, me! oh, my! ah mamma, mamma, mamma, don't you hear the baby cry? When I used to work off in the river, Sat in wood and water all the day: Chilly wind he come, and make me shiver: O glad this child he was to get away! White man he gave me silver dollar, Ev'ry day I work upon the dock; Then I get some whiskey, and I holler: Blom'e, blome, Caterrego rock! This child is fond of frigh'd tatoe, Cat-fish, and coffee: oh! it's nice; It make him feel just like an alligator, When him just about to catch a mice. When the bell he rings, I go to dinner; Den I goes and see my Dinah dear; I'll marry her, as sure as I'm a sinner, And love her all the days that's in the year.

Source: Adapted from E. Warden (1860)

This is a 19th-century minstrel song by Edward Warden (1860) that was evidently brought aboard ship. Sheet music for the minstrel song can be found in the Brown Digital Repository. The song may have connections to He-back, She-back.

A. G. Gilchrist records this song between several other shanties in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Vol. 3, No. 12 (1908).

Another negro chanty, “Tapiocum”, (learnt on shipboard by a friend from the singing of an old coloured seaman), is of a more cheerful cast. It describes the happy darkies hauling in the cargo “on de lebby” (levy = river embankment or wharf), with a gay chorus of:

“Working on de cotton-boat, ten bob a day, oh, Pompey, can yo prick upon de banjo”? etc

Oakum is a tarred fiber used especially for sealing gaps in ships.