This lewd shanty comes from the days of the forty-niners. Captain Whall claimed the name "hog-eye" origins from a type of barge used on the California coast. Many others have suggested a particular obscenity in the name itself. For instance, Terry gives an impassioned defense of coarse intimacy in the introduction of The Shanty Book. "Every old sailor knew the meaning of the term," and he wishes decency would permit a conclusive demonstration, but he can only indicate that it had nothing whatever to do with the eye of the man who was sung about. The explanation, he continues, "[makes] it clear why every sailor called it 'hog-eye', and why only landsmen editors ever get the word wrong," substituting evidently laughable replacements such as "ox-eye". Maintaining some of the sailor's delicacy: the common interpretation is that a pig's eye has certain anatomical familiarity.
According to Colcord's Roll and Go, it shares with Abel Brown the dubious distinction of "most indecent" of all shanties. "None of its versions can be printed in anything like their entirety," and hence we are left guessing at where particular euphemisms hide.
Percy Grainger recorded the song in 1906 from Charles Rosher (Chelsea, England). Grainger's short notes for The Hog's Eye Man are:
West Indian? chanty for topsail halyards or hoisting on boats
The song found its way into "mountain music" collections including traditions of Kentucky and West Virginia, especially as a fiddle tune.