Whall says the popularity of this song owes much to its good chorus and opportunity for improvisation. One example verse he recalls:
The next came the conger as long as a mile,
He gave a broad grin and continued to smile.
It was sometimes sung with each man in turn taking a verse, and he was expected to give a new fish each time. If the improviser broke down, the chorus promptly chipped in and saved the situation. According to Stan Hugill, "with a good singing crowd that could improvide, the song might go on for hours".
In later days, it was used as a shanty to the tune of Blow the Man Down, and, according to Whall, "using the original chorus of that Black Ball Line song".
Stan Hugill gives 11 verses and his own overview of the many variants for this song:
The best-known version of this song is the one sung in the thirties by the famous Scottish contralto, Katherine Ferrier - "Blaw the Wind Southerly". The River Tyne area of northern England also claims an early version. However, the song moved rapidly across the world, and the Gloucester fishermen of the northeast coast of America soon had their own variant. A faster and musically more complicated number comes from the fishermen of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. England has another variant found in the Bristol Channel ports, but the one we give here probably hailed from the southeast of England.
Hugills says the song was popular in the fo'c'sles of British sailing ships and sometimes used at their capstans and pumps, while Whall gave it as a hauling shanty.