Where Am I To Go, Me Johnnies (song)

Stan Hugill collected this song from the West Indies black shantyman called "Harding the Barbadian Barbarian". Harding served aboard Yankee, British, Bluenose, and West Indian vessels and was a "first-rate sailor".

In the days of sail part of making a ship's boy into an able-bodied seaman, or A.B., consisted of training him in the art of going aloft and stowing a sail. The highest sails - the royals and t'yallants (in German and Scandinavian ships, royals and bramsegels; in French ships, the coquetois (cockatoos) and perroquets) - were the boys' special concern. They had to loose them when the order came and stow them in a blow. After racing aloft they would edge out side-ways, crablike, along the two-inch footropes and pummel the sail until they had subdued it and could secure them with ties called gaskets. When the job was done satisfactorily, they would slide down the backstays to the deck.

The song has been recorded by Gordon Bok, Woods Tea Company, and others.

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Where am I to go me Johnnies? O, where am I to go?
Ch: To me way, hay, hay, high, roll an' go!
O, where am I to go me Johnnies? O, where am I to go?
For I'm a young sailor boy, an' where am I to go?

'Way up on that t'gallant yard, that's where yer bound to go,
'Way up on that t'gallant yard, the gans'l for to stow.

'Way up on that t'gallant yard and take that gans'l in,
'Way up aloft an' lay right out an' stow it neat an' trim.

Yer bound away around Cape Horn that's where yer bound to go,
Yer bound away around Cape Horn, all through the ice an' snow.

Yer'll be an able seaman, lad, when you have served yer time,
An' then ye'll ship as a sailorman aboard the Blackball line.

One day ye'll sit for a ticket, lad, this work will serve ye fine,
Ye'll finish up as a captain, lad, aboard some liner prime.

Oh, where am I to go, me Johnnies, where am I to go?
Oh, where am I to go, me Johnnies, where am I to go?

From Songs of the Sea by Stan Hugill (1977)

Metadata

DT Index: 7810

Hauling shanty, Halyard shanty

American, English, West Indies

Selected recordings:

Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag Soundtrack Various artists

External links:

Mudcat Café thread

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