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This page is a compilation of the a eleven part series originally issued
on Ballad-L.
"Notes on Stan Hugill's Camouflaged Shanties" These notes on Stan Hugill's "camouflaged" shanties were made a year or two ago, mostly. They should not be taken as definitive. In his very first book, Shanties from the Seven Seas (Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1961), Hugill writes of "obscenity in the shanties"
(33), and cites some earlier opinions on the subject. The English
Captains John A. Sampson and W. B. Whall, for example, both veterans
of the British Merchant Service in the latter nineteenth century,
disagreed about the level of bawdry in the shanties. Sampson
believed that the "alleged coarseness of the Shanties [had] been
grossly exaggerated," while Whall stated flatly some years earlier
that sailors on cargo vessels carrying no passengers "never heard a
decent shanty. The words...were the veriest filth" (33; emphasis in
original). Whall's point is well taken. Aboard passenger liners or
if the captain's family was aboard, crews were under severe
disciplinary constraint and would not have been allowed to sing
anything remotely "obscene" that could be overheard by women and c!
hildren in particular. On a cargo-carrying ship at sea or in a
foreign port songs might be sung unrestrainedly. But one should also
keep in mind that Whall, the elder of these two commentators, went
to sea as long ago as the 1860s and wrote his opinion in 1910, at
about the sme time that Cecil Sharp and others found it necessary to
edit and bowdlerize ruthlessly country folksongs which nowadays seem
entirely harmless and in some cases even "sweet." Hugill's own experience made it "obvious that sailor's working songs did contain a fair amount of gross obscenity, but many versions of the same shanty were quite clean by comparison." With some exceptions, he says, most all shanties had a "dirty version." A very few existed in a "dirty version" only. (One might contrast that observation with the contents of any modern-day collection of "rugby songs," of which a majority exist in a "dirty version only.") At the other end of the scale, another few shanties were "entirely [and seemingly always--JL ] devoid of anything obscene or even coarse" (34). For some sense of the bawdiness of shanties, Hugill refers to Chansons de la Voile "Sans Voile" (Dunkirk: N.p. [?], 1935), a book by Capt. A. Hayet (alias "Jean Marie le Bihor"). Hugill apparently felt that the English-language shanties were comparable in the nature of their bawdry to those in French. It isn't clear from Hugill's words whether by "dirty version" he meant an entire, perhaps parodic, song to the same tune as an established "clean" version, or whether he meant that "dirty" verses might be added to otherwise clean shanties at the whim of the shantyman. "Dirty version" might simply mean a "dirty performance," with the dirt often limited to a few verses in an otherwise unexceptionable song. The latter appears to be the safer assumption in the light of limited knowledge. (Cf. the attitude of a collector of "Matty Groves" in New York State some years ago who characterized the singer's entire version as a "dirty song" because the final stanza said tersely that Matty had "screwed" Lord Darnell's wife.) Hugill's statement that "two or more shanties had a dirty version only" (34) is clearer. In nearly twenty years at sea, therefore, Hugill probably learned only a few shanties having an irreducibly bawdy or "obscene" theme. Hugill's preface notes significantly that "Some of the songs have had to be altered owing to the demands of the censor, so a little of the real meaning...has been lost.....Students wishing to know how many of the camouflaged verses went will be able to find them in a book now in preparation, to be called The Ballad , edited by G. Legman, Cagnes" (xiv-xv). By my count, Hugill admits to having "altered" or "camouflaged" roughly 55 shanties and forebitters. The number must be approximate because one can't always definitively count a song as one shanty or two. What of cases where the bawdy verses customarily associated with one shanty (like "The Hog-Eye Man") are fitted to the tune and refrain pattern of another (like "Johnny Come Down to Hilo") Two shanties or three ? Hugill also counts the forebitter "Ratcliffe Highway" as one song and the capstan shanty "Blow the Man Down" as one more, even though the bawdy stanzas of one version of the former were frequently attached to the tune and structure of the latter. And "Ratcliffe Highway" itself existed in at least three or four distinguishable, though clearly related, forms. In Part 2 I'll begin to list the specific songs and versions that Hugill admits to having "camouflaged," with some observations concerning their probable unbowdlerized content. ============================================== The songs that Hugill cites as having been subjected to his "camouflaging" techniques in Shanties from the Seven Seas are as follows. Page numbers are in parentheses. I'm in the process of expanding the notes, and there's plenty of room for improvement. ABEL BROWN THE SAILOR (440-42) : Hugill says, "Entirely obscene...I have had to camouflage rather a lot." Colcord, Songs of American Sailorman , includes the innocuous
opening stanzas only, under the title of "Abram Brown," and this is
how one of Carpenter's Scottish informants sang it for him in 1929.
Gordon's "Inferno" contains a text or two. The earliest publication
of an unexpurgated version appears to have been in Immortalia (1927)
as "Ballochy [sic] Bill the Sailor." The letter-expurgated text in
Harry Morgan's Rugby Songs (London: Sphere, 1967) was the first
virtually intact version to be widely published. Ed Cray's The
Erotic Muse (1969) was the first to print a full American text, with
his usual thorough and invaluable notes. Harlow, Chanteying on
American Ships (Barre, MA: Barre Gazette, 1962), expurgates the
shanty he heard aboard the U.S. merchantman Akbar in 1876.
Memoirists and novelists of WW I attest to the popularity of the
song in the British army and air services in 1914-18 under the "Ballocky
Bill" title. The comic U.S. pop song "Barnacle Bill ! Greig-Duncan, Vol. 8, p. 277 has a innocent couplet from Duncan's childhood about an evening arrival of "Blickerty Brown the sailor," indicating that Scottish children knew the song in the 1870s. ("Blickerty" is conceivably a mishearing of "blackguardy," though no parallel versions have been reported.) According to a reliable website, American baseball pitcher William Henry Taylor (1855-1900) was nicknamed "Bollicky [sic] Bill" during his seven-year professional career (1881-1887). The site does not say why or by whom. (For some unknown reason, the ancient English word "ballocks" [now usu. spelled "bollocks" for obvious reasons] seems never to have been common in the U.S., except latterly in to "bollix up." Doctoral students, take note.) Those who attended the Mystic Sea Music Festival in 1988 were
privileged to hear Stan Hugill sing his unexpurgated version of
"Abel Brown" as part of an officially sponsored though adults-only
"Bawdy Sea Songs Workshop." The house was SRO, despite warnings that
the folksong material would be at least "X-rated." There seems to
have been no public outcry against the event. =================================== Here is a reworking of "Timothy Brown, the Sailor" from The
Rakish Rhymer (1917 printing -- reissue of ~1864 American
songster). The song is said to have been sung in the "Coal Hole
Tavern" which was in existence in London from the early to mid
1800s. TIMOTHY BROWN, THE TAILOR. A celebrated Song, written by Timothy Brown, and sung Tune - " Thimothy Brown, the Sailor." Young Timothy Brown was a gay young chap, Oh, wont't we, &c. ' Come let us join the dance so quick !' I believe you, &c. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE RAKISH RHYMER 39 Her dancing made the people stare, Oh, it's precious, &c. He put on his tile to have a walk Oh, you've, &c. ' Your vows of love to me are stuff,' You're a duck, &c. ' You're a nice young man, I do declare,' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 40 THE RAKISH RHYMER 'Then jump the broom with me, my dear' - Then jump, &c. ' Wot's them words you said to me ?' Oh, cheese it, &c. Then she hit him a kick, and he felt the crack - Oh, I found, &c. MORAL Young men, when you go a leg to shake Or p'rhaps, &c. ======= End email from John Mehlberg ====== A-ROVIN' (45-52) : In version A, which is the most substantial, Hugill admits to having bowdlerized "only at impossible places." The first six stanzas, he tells us, are unaltered, as are the rhyming words of all the solos. Version C, which he heard in Port Adelaide, Australia, lacks two stanzas which Hugill found "difficult to camouflage." He published version A once again, in Shanties and Sailor's Songs (N.Y.: Praeger, 1969), pp. 169-70, in slightly less bowdlerized form. Virtually all standard shanty collections, and many other songbooks, contain a polite version of this song, which is also known as "The Maid of Amsterdam." British versions occasionally set the scene in Plymouth. Clean versions were often issued on commercial recordings from about 1930. It is somewhat remarkable to consider that some of the earliest polite versions occur in university songbooks of the 1890s. As to the principal bawdy version, Masefield thought that it had survived from a song performed in Heywood's comedy The Rape of Lucrece (1640). But Hugill, in a valuable contribution, reprinted the words of Heywood's song in his 1969 book (pp.167-68), showing the clear similarity in theme and even language, but making a direct line of descent look very unlikely. The first unexpurgated version to see print was probably that in Immortalia (1927). It is rather similar to that printed by Cray, even to the presence of the nautical term "mainhatch," though Cray's version came from a college student forty years later. Cray gives valuable notes. Duncan Emrich, in Folklore on the American Land , printed the forthright version sung for Alan Lomax in 1939 by American shantyman Dick Maitland. Carpenter's singers were also less reticent than most collectors and editors of the time. Doerflinger's printing is interrupted by a mysterious and uncommented-on ". . . " at one point. Vance Randolph actually found a version in the Ozarks, though with a very worn down tune, and this is reprinted and discussed by G. Legman in Roll Me in Your Arms (U. of Ark. Press, 1992). Refurbished bawdy versions, usually with lines too sophomoric to be more than twenty or thirty years old, appear on the Internet and on sound recordings. There are too many similar songs, which Legman aptly referred to as "anatomical progressions," to be dealt with here. One seriously doubts that Heywood could have been the inventor of the form. (Cf. the Irish song "Cunhla," famously performed in translation by Planxty. Playford & D'Urfey have another, and the rugby and military songbooks have more.) Stan Hugill withdrew the camouflage from all but one or two stanzas of "A-Rovin'" (version A) at Mystic in 1988. The missing stanzas were undoubtedly omitted by accident. Hugill's version is longer and more creative (hilariously so at one or two points) than any other. BALTIMORE (418) : "Of course, many of the final verses have had
to be censored !" Comments invited as always, and stay tuned for Part 3. ======================================================== More comments on lusty shanties for red-blooded academics who take their pedantry straight. At the end of Part 2, I meant to say that "Baltimore" parodies the *chorus* of Sir Harry's song. BILLY BOY (450-52) : Hugill confirms Richard Runciman Terry's statement that it had many "unprintable" stanzas, and says they did not lend themselves "to easy camouflage." Terry and Hugill seem to be the only authorities to give this shore song as a shanty, though Hugill states he met several sailors from Welsh and southern English ports who sang it. He gives two incomplete stanzas (clearly not "many") that he was unable to bowdlerize or disguise: "Can she heave the dipsy lead, etc. ?" and "Can she strop a block, etc.?" Whatever the original words, surely the resourceful Nancy could have heaved the dipsy lead while "lying in her bed." Did Hugill or his editor feel that even that image was too suggestive for a book of folksongs ? To "strop a block" meant literally to fit a ring of rope (a "strop") around the body of a "block" (pulley) so the latter might be hung up for use. As Hugill tells us in Sailortown (significantly not a songbook), it also meant to engage in sexual intercourse. The bawdy rhyming possibilities, though not the entire line, are somewhat limited in this case. Similarly, seagoing improvisation might well have added "haul upon the bunt," "climb upon the mast," etc., ad lib., depending on the singer. BLOW BOYS BLOW (226-30) : Hugill doesn't mention any bawdy lines to be dealt with, but Doerflinger's version III ( Shantymen and Shantyboys , pp. 27-28) silently offers ellipses after stzs. 6 and 20. The first deletion(s) may have commented on the habits of the "bronco" mate and skipper, and there may have been some appreciative feminine metaphor to enlarge upon "Oh, look at those heavy tops'ls on her !" With rhyme usually optional in the shanties, the bawdy possibilities become unpredictable and effectively endless. BLOW THE MAN DOWN (199-218) : Version A, Hugill says, took its lines from "Ratcliffe Highway," which is now available in uncensored texts, the earliest collected by Gordon and made public by Cray. Version E is a "milkmaid" version, which Hugill had to camouflage "quite a lot." "Quite a lot" is plenty, so the only suggestion I have is that the genuine words may have represented an adaptation of an unpublished song collected by Horace Beck in Maine and Virginia, in which a milkmaid is talked into milking a "bull" owned by the man in the case. "Blow the Man Down" was so hospitable to lyrics from other songs, from "Brian O'Linn" (in Lomax & Lomax) to "The Devil and the Farmer's Wife" (Hugill, p. 213), that any bawdy narrative with the proper scansion may well have been sung to it. The prolific Oscar Brand is reponsible for a synthetically "redirtified"
redaction of the song, which he has recorded at least twice. The
first time was on Bawdy Sea Shanties in 1958. Brand's song has been
accepted as the "real thing" by many unsuspecting revivalist
singers. The final stanzas of Hugill's shanty are lifted or adapted from the opening of some version of "Blow the Man Down." Hugill's comments and bowdlerizing practice here, as possibly in the "dipsy lead" / "sleeping in her bed" stanza of "Billy Boy," suggest that he or his editors were ready to denounce and purge virtually *any* sexual or scatological imagery from the shanties. The idea that the original lines must have been leeringly pornographic or crapulously revolting (rather than sexually suggestive or merely crude) seems to lack foundation, although such lines did exist in certain songs, notably "A-Rovin'," "The Hog-Eye Man," "Johnny Come Down to Hilo," "Ratcliffe Highway," "Sacramento," "The Fireship," and "Home, Dearie, Home." CAN'T YE DANCE THE POLKA? (372-73): Of version B, Hugill says
"Much of this version is unprintable." That suggests that at least a
stanza or two has been omitted. Perhaps, as in other songs, the
sailor protagonist wound up with a venereal disease. If so, the part
about "I know yer little game" may be a complete invention in order
to bring the song to a swift and innocent conclusion. ======================================================== CAN'T YOU DANCE THE POLKA? (cont'd). Once again, Oscar Brand is responsible for bringing a form of this song ( Hugill's version C) up to discerning frat-boy standards. He evidently went to work on the version Doerflinger got from Richard Maitland ( Shantymen... , p. 58-60), and recorded the redaction on Bawdy Sea Shanties in 1958. Maitland's song has been smoothed out and recorded a number of times since, notably in folk-rock style as "New York Girls" by Steeleye Span (with Peter Sellers on uke.) Finbar Furey sang an abridged version in Gangs of New York . The source of the "C" lyrics is ultimately the broadside of "The Shirt and the Apron" ("Jack-All-Alone," "Peter Street," "Barrack Street"). Hugill and Maitland both have the sailor wake up "stark naked in the bed," a line that would probably have been excised as "bawdy" had it referred to a woman. Each of Harlow's versions (pp. 37-40), from the '70s, contains a stanza or two clearly indicating that the "fair maid" involved was a prostitute. Harlow's second text ("Santy") is slightly more daring and bears some material from "The Fireship," whose words Hugill says were sometimes adapted to the shanty's melody and form. CHEERILY MAN, HAUL 'ER AWAY, SALLY RACKETT (312-17) : Essentially
the same interchangeable words given three varying forms. "Obscene
to a degree," says Hugill, though he cites C. Fox Smith for the
information that clean words were sung as well. The nature of shanty
singing makes it virtually inevitable that without passengers
aboard, "obscene" versions were likely to carry some "clean" verses
as well. At any rate, the lines are so short that whatever obscenity
was involved must have relied on pithy, humorous notions rather than
elaborate fantasies. "Little Nancy Dawson," who "has flannel drawers
on" most likely wore none at all, if one of Hugill's unexpurgated
stanzas to "Serafina" is representative. "Katie Karson [sic]," who
"slept with" [sic] a parson gets a mysterious "barson" on p. 313,
but English dialect "whoreson" would seem more likely. "Oh, nip an'
tuck it" is a bizarre reaction to news that "Missus Duckett" has
"kicked the bucket." Some other feminine rhyme ! DERBY RAM (437-38). Had to be camouflaged "quite a lot as the sailors' version was markedly obscene." Cray gives valuable information and a childishly bawdy shore version. One might suspect that the comic stanzas of the ram at sea have been faked, but Colcord has most or all of them without a disclaimer, and the seemingly trustworthy Capt. Robinson (1917) had them as well. (He seems to have learned the shanty in the '60s.) One likely, though trivial bowdlerization in this lying song is in the chorus. "Oh, yes, me bullies, yer know yer tellin' a lie ! " makes more sense as "Oh, yes, ye bugger !" ( a word Hugill doesn't seem to use in this book). In stz. 7, the ram, back on shore, "tried a silly trick. / He tried to jump a five-barred gate an' landed in a rick." This is abysmally silly, but the real words, since printed several times, as by Cray and Morgan, are no better : "landed on his prick." The horn of brass, we know from similar information, didn't "turn into a mast" but "grew out his arse." The butcher boys carried away in the torrent of blood are perfectly authentic. Hugill's polite ram was buried in "St. Joan's," but, in one of the best lines in shantydom, "It took ten men an' an elephant to carry one of its bones." Even A. L. Lloyd was eventually permitted to sing (sort of) "stones" here, but Hugill was evidently shy of using that word from the King James Bible. Fortunately he tells us in an aside, "In the original, 'St. Paul's was sung." As far as I know, no version of "The Derby Ram" has been adduced
to explain what was happening at sea when the ram was not at the
wheel. However, A Collection of Sea Songs from the Stores of Dave E.
Jones ( USS Teal ?; ca 1930) offers an unusual version of "The Jolly
Tinker" which parallels in its early stanzas the sort of thing the
ram was doing, e.g. "Well, the ship which he came back in, / The
women had the pox / So he shinnied up the mast / And he fucked the
double blocks." ("Double blocks" is a real nautical touch.) When
Hugill's ram climbed aloft "to stow the tops'l tight," he soon "lost
his nerve" and "had an awful fright." The word "shite" would seem
appropriate here as both a line-ender and the output of a terrified
animal. The ram also carried out some sort of maneuver "on the poop
afore eight bells was struck." Given that "The Jolly Tinker"
violates the captain and crew, the ram might be given a similar
opportunity if the line could be made to end with the Legman, in Roll Me in Your Arms , identifies "The Derby Ram" as one of the songs given in full in Hugill's bawdy-song manuscript. He offers a great deal of general commentary about the song. DIXIE (424) : Hugill connects this with a woodpecker chorus I do not recognize, but there can be little doubt that the song he has in mind is the one beginning, "I stuck my finger in the woodpecker's hole." DO LET ME 'LONE, SUSAN (379-80) : "Much of it is unprintable,
since it refers to all the parts of the human anatomy ! " Another
progression offering few difficulties for any improviser - and
little enough in terms of inventive possibilities. ======================================================== DONKEY RIDING (147-49) : Much improvisation was given to this song and many indecent lines found in the regulation verses....Words from it can be (and were) fitted to ["My Bonnie Highland Lassie-O"]. A further animadversion on this song and on shanty bawdry in general are in Shanties and Sailor Songs (p. 201) : "The final line of each verse...was usually of the veriest filth....[T]he sailor rarely used double entendre .... No sir! Sailor John called a spade a spade, and all his dirty lines were filthy in the extreme." In the 1961 collection, stanza 2 has the "gals" of Timbuctoo waggling their "bustles." The 1969 collection replaces this with "backsides," which is still a small step away from the word probably used. But it's interesting to consider that the mere use of the word "arses" here would be enough to turn the line into "the veriest filth." In stz. 3 (1961) they "waggle an' dance with a roll 'n' go" in Valparaiso, but this becomes "waggle an' wriggle" eight years later; exactly what's being disguised here is not certain, but "gals" putting on a "show" for sailors in a South American port suggests, to readers of the slightly less discreet Sailortown , quite a bit more than simple "wiggling." The Canton girls "play hong-ki-kong" in both books; the meaning of this phrase is not explained. In Miramishee, say both books, "[T]he skeeters do bite we." This sounds very lame. Off Cape Horn, "the weather's niver warm" in 1961, but in 1969 it's "yer backside." DRUNKEN SAILOR (134-35) : "Some [verses were] obscene and even sacrilegious, the Virgin Mary being referred to in one version." Since rhyme was not an element in this shanty and "[n]ormally, only two or three verses" were needed to finish a job, opportunities for improvisation were wide open. More than fifty modern verses made for folkies, including Hugill's published examples, are here :http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Trails/2625/song1.html , with more at other sites. Hugill is the only shanty collector to allude to bawdy lines in this song. "Put him into bed with the captain's daughter" is evidently a wild favorite nowadays; it seems to have developed during the revival. THE EBENEZER (476-77) : Hugill altered "one or two parts." Lot's
wife's ass" appears in place of the obvious "...arse." (Doerflinger,
at the same spot, has "Lot's wife's ..." ) In Shanties and Sailor's
Songs , "beggar" is replaced by "bugger." ======================================================== FIRE DOWN BELOW (520) : H. doesn't associate this with any bawdy lyrics, but version A, with its discursive form contains opening stanzas that seem to have been inspired by a lengthy recitation called "The Trip to Heaven" (Randolph-Legman, p. 708-09). The phrase "fire down below" appears as a metaphor in Cray's version of "The Fireship" (see next), and the verses of that song can be fitted easily to the shanty. THE FIRESHIP (pp. 171-72) : This title is sometimes given to the VD version of Hugill's "Ratcliffe Highway," but despite some shared metaphors the two songs are quite distinct. The present song also goes by the name "A Dark and Rolling Eye." "Many of the verses," says H., "are unprinrable," and, unusually, he specifies that two stanzas are missing in the middle of the song. Fortunately, one of Cray's correspondents supplied a full version, learned from his father, said to date from before 1914. Alan Lomax got a somewhat elliptical version from Blaine Stubblefield in 1941, and Max Hunter found something similar, suggesting that versions of the song wre fairly widespread at one time. Randolph found a briefer version in Berryville, Ark., in 1951 that, like Stubblefield's, is "bawdier" only because it contains a some plain-spoken four-letter words. Hugill mentions that the words were sometimes fitted to the shanty, "Can't You Dance the Polka?" Randolph-Legman reprints a broadside of about 1790, "Covent Garden Ramble" (first reprinted by Holloway & Black), which is clearly a direct ancestor of the song, though lacking seafaring elements. Songs in which a commercial sexual encounter is described in nautical metaphors go back to the 17th C., but are only indirectly related to this one. (The late Bruce Olson presents one or two of them at his "Old Songs" website.) "The Fireship" was first published in the modern form (expurgated, of course) in 1929. The Weavers had a big hit with it (bowdlerized) in 1950. [I'm especially interest in these "nautical double entendre" songs, so if anybody has collected anything similar or otherwise relevant, please consider letting me know. A more detailed discussion is in the works.] THE GALS O' CHILE (52-54) : Of the refrains, H. had to camouflage
"the first and third." He also "altered" the verses "to make the
song printable." The second refrain printed uinder the music is
"We'll dance and all drink pisco!" but something is amiss heer as
well because it subsequently becomes "We'll all drink lots of vino!"
He says that the real refrains were "nothing more than bawdy
alterations of Spanish phrases." Colcord reprints Robinson's 1917
bowdlerization; he had observed that the original was "pretty
shocking" (Not "revolting" or "disgusting," n.b.) In Sailortown ,
Hugill ventures the refrain, "Sing olay for them Chile whores!" This
doesn't sound much like a burlesque of any Spanish phrase picked up
from the lancheros , as H. says they were Shanties and Sailor's
Songs . Many pseudo-pidgin phrases would sound ridiculously bawdy
when forced into English parody. E.g., the word "peso," the Spanish
words for "a little gold," the nautically prominent colors "g! Quien sabe ? If anybody out there ever heard Hugill sing this song, or something like it, please e-mail me. THE GIRL IN PORTLAND STREET (54-55) : "One of the 'anatomical progession' shanties." Verses resembled those of "A-Rovin'." GOODBYE, FARE-YE-WELL (122) : Version C is a "milkmaid" version, open to easy improvisation if the speaker had other than "honorable intentions" in mind and the milkmaid was more plain-spoken than most songs. GOODNIGHT, LADIES (179-80) : "Naturally," many of the activities
aboard "are not fit for the general public's ears!" Given the
pattern and brevity of the solos, easy and highly unsophisticated
improvisation is called for. ======================================================== HOME, HOME, HOME (pp. 499-501) : "Obscene to a degree...." Luckily for us, Legman printed this up on a broadside in 1959 "as a thank-you offering" to Hugill for his unexpurgated manuscript and reprinted it in Roll Me in Your Arms , p. 84. A line-by-line comparison of the two shows just how extensively Hugill altered at least some of his material : "bowdlerized" is the only proper word; the eupehmistic "camouflaged" just won't do. For example, the (one would think) perfectly acceptable identification of the heroine as a "servant maid" in the original becomes, unfathomably, a "fair young Miss" in the printed book ! But compare the opening stanzas for yourself : Original : There once was a servant maid, on the Highway she
did dwell, Revised : There once was a fair young Miss, on the Highway
she did dwell, Later, graphic lines are dealt with no less ruthlessly, belying the assumption that "anyone" can figure out the "real" words to a bowdlerized folksong. "Home, Home, Home," is, of course, an ancestor of "Bell-Bottom
Trousers," still widely known and sung in both ribald and "pop"
versions, after becoming a hit parade smash in 1944-45. The earliest
printing of "Bell-Bottom Trousers" in modern form seems to be "The
Waitress and the Sailor," in Songs My Mother Never Taught Me , by
John Jacob Niles, Douglas Moore, and Wally Wallgren (N.Y.: Macauley,
1929). The text and tune (not quite the familiar one, BTW) are dated
to 1918, though with Niles's involvement, the utter authenticity of
text & tune may be dubious. (The same book features bowdlerized
versions of "The Bastard King of England" and "Hinky Dinky
Parlez-Vous," among others; also Niles's celebrated confection
"Venezuela," with a detailed narrative of how he happened to collect
it and a couple more in similar style *directly* from soused British
sailors in a seaside tavern in World War One.) A seemingly more
trustworthy text (no tune) of "Bell-Bottom Trousers," from the
British As Legman, Cray, and others have often pointed out, the predecessor of such songs is the British broadside often called "Rosemary Lane," and other songs, notably "The Oak and the Ash," which were copied from and mixed with it; they turn up frequently in 19th C. tradition. The earliest trace of the song in North America may be a Civil War parody from Missouri at http://www.bartonpara.com/civilwar/rebel/rebel.htm One of the latest developments, from the current neo-romantic "folk" movement, is this one : http://collections.ic.gc.ca/folklore/worksong/dearie.htm The Dubliners had a big Irish hit with "Home, Boys, Home," a musically hopped-up song that, except for the performance style, isn't too far from trad English versions. Google hits nearly 50,000 sites in a search for "Home, Boys, Home," "Home, Dearest Home," and "Home, Dearie, Home." JL, with more to come. ======================================================== THE HOG-EYE MAN (268-72) : "[M]any other shanties were just as obscene, and even worse !...[T]he solo parts were indecent, and a large amount of camouflaging was necessary before this song could be made public." The shanty is old and popular. Whall learned a version in the 1860s. Harlow heard it in the following decade, and Colcord at the turn of the century. Sharp collected a version. Gordon likely recorded it in the Bay Area about 1920, but his collection of 140 shanties is no longer findable at the Library of Congress. (Here's another project for someone: it must be there *somewhere*.) Carpenter recorded three or four fragments in 1928-29; two came from his oldest singers, Mark Page and Edward Robinson, both of whom went to sea in 1849. Doerflinger does not offer a version of the song, though some of his informants must have been familiar with it. Earliest mention, in the form of a single harmless stanza, seems to have been in S. B. Luce's Naval Songs in 1883. In Davis & Tozer's Sailors' Songs or "Chanties" , the song is called "The Ox-Eyed Man" and consists of seven stzs. and an atypical one-line cho. All of Davis & Tozer's lyrics are suspect, as the words of Capt. Davis (credited as lyricist on the title page) are often his own compositions, in the Baring-Gould style, but without Baring-Gould's caveat that rewriting has occurred. Harlow also felt compelled to bowdlerize extensively, relying partly though without acknowledgment on Davis. In Harlow's words, "These words are far more appropriate for the above chantey than those sung by us [in 1876], for the song is founded on a negro sailor who charmed Sally. She fell for his pleadings and he left her as abruptly as he came into her life. The words of the chantey being of the vilest are not fit to print" (p.55). Typical of both Davis and Harlow is the nearly unsingable couplet, The hog-eye man gave a fond look of love, Terry was the first to emphasize the shanty's "unprintability," and called attention to an arcane meaning of "hogeye," which he allowed to remain obscure. A "hog-eye," as has often been noted, was a kind of barge used in the San Francisco Bay area, and the "hog-eye man" was most likely conceived of as sailor from one of these barges. The reason for the name is not clear; perhaps the hog-eye barge was pointed at both ends. Hugill thinks Terry was wrong about any sexual significance to "hog-eye," proof that Terry's interpretation was not as widely understood as he thought, but Legman and other sources showbthat it was sometimes used as a synonym for the female pudenda. In fact, it may well have been the pun on "hog-eye" that aided in the development of chiefly bawdy versions. Legman published six couplets and the chorus of Hugill's bawdy version in Roll Me in Your Arms , to accompany some related verses Randolph dug out of the Ozarks. For some reason, though, Legman pointedly omits *seven* couplets, "in which the Hog-Eye Man makes love to Jinny" (p. 403). What Legman does print shows that the shanty fully deserves its reputation. Hugill says that the bawdy words of "A-Rovin'" were also sung in this shanty. In the two stanzas recorded by Carpenter from Rees Baldwin of Barry, So. Wales, the blunt final word of each couplet is elided into the chorus in "teasing" fashion. An American shanty group called The Boarding Party sang a stanza at Mystic in 1988 (with Hugill in attendance) which, to judge from a parallel in Randolph's collection, is entirely consistent with tradition : Sally in the kitchen making duff, A stz. seemingly originated by folkies is, The hog-eye man says I'm in luck, An authentic stz., undoubtedly a "floater," was daringly - and justly - published some years ago in FSJ (quoted from memory): With a c*** for a jolly boat, a p**** for an oar, Surely this is one of the most memorable of all folksong couplets. The popularity of the shanty, even in insipid versions (which
allow the singer the ego boost of saying, "I can't tell you the
*real* words") is reflected by well over a thousand Google hits on
"hog-eye man," an otherwise obsolete phrase. ================================ The verse of "Sally in the kitchen..." is also part of the song "I Have a Dog Named Rover" (aka "Mary in the Kitchen"). The Complete Rugby Songs LP version of this song titled "Mary in the Kitchen" starts off with Mary in the kitchen and introduces her as having a dog with many scatological problems. The text below is from The Irish Sing Rugby Songs LP (ca 1968). I HAVE A DOG NAMED ROVER I have a dog whose name is Rover, tra la la, tra la la I have a dog whose name is Ben, tra la la, tra la la I have a dog whose name is Clarence, tra la la, tra la la I have a dog, a great big Morgan, tra la la, tra la la Mary in the kitchen shelling peas, tra la la, tra la la Mary in the kitchen pummeling duck, tra la la, tra la la Mary in the kitchen frying rice, tra la la, tra la la ====== End email from John Mehlberg ======= ======================================================== [THE INDIAN LASS : Hugill never printed a full version of this familiar English broadside, but he sang an excellent one at Mystic in 1988 or '89, which he recorded on his final album, Sailing Days (1991). That other versions were sung at sea is indicated by this fragment from Sailortown (1967), p. 182 : As I was a-walkin' down Pensacola shore, Hugill calls this a "rather rumbustious and lewd old sailor-song
called Little Mohee ." This lovely Kanaka, bare-breasted she stood. ] JAMBOREE (381-84) : "[V]ery difficult to camouflage....[T]he final and noisiest line of the shanty's chorus is unprintable ! " According to Whall, the line was often sung as "I wonder if my clothes are out of pawn," but with no passengers aboard "an unprintable version obtained." Hugill says he's tried to get closer to the original unprintable words. The final line of each verse also "had an unprintable rhyme." Hugill renders the "unprintable refrain" as "Oooh, Jinny keep your ring-tail warm !" One perfectly plausible (if not necessarily entirely genuine) bawdy stanza and refrain line appears in Hugill's Sailortown (1967), p. 109 : Now me boys we're all in dock, Legman says in Blow the Candle Out , p.674, that a "favorite nineteenth-century sea chantey...[has as] its chorus-and-title 'Jinny, Keep Your Arsehole Warm.' " A recent revival collection (interesting because the songs are said to be current favorites among U.S. Navy officers), What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor? , by Douglas Morgan (2002), prints A. L. Lloyd's words to this shanty with, however, Legman's refrain line. Whether Morgan referred to Randolph-Legman, or he or his sources reinvented the line on their own, is not clear. JOHN, COME TELL US AS WE HAUL AWAY (pp.287-88) : "Like many shanties, this has several non-drawing room verses." JOHNNY COME DOWN TO HILO (266-67) : "The [lyrics of] the bawdy version of 'The Hog-eye Man' [were] also made use of." Brand is reponsible for the currently heard ribald version with stanzas like We're runnin' away around the Cape, and Her dress was blue, her eyes the same, LEAVE HER JOHNNY, LEAVE HER (293-98) : "Many unprintable stanzas were sung, directed at the afterguard, the grub, and the owners" at the end of a voyage. THE LIMERICK SHANTY (511-13) : Hugill admits to "camouflaging" the last line of some of the limericks. The real finales of most or all may be found in Legman's and other limerick collections, though they are not especially associated with the sea. Charles J. Finger refers to the singing of limericks on shipboard, apparently in the 1890s, in his Frontier Ballads . Owing to a resemblance in the last line of the choruses, Hugill mentions on p. 513 "a bawdy old forebitter" as follows : First came the captain's wife, Ray Palmer and Cyril Tawney both give extensive texts of the song in question, which is still current, with different choruses, in British and American naval and aviation circles. THE LIVERPOOL JUDIES (version C) (402-03) : The last line of stanzas 6 and 7 is "camouflaged," but the end of stanza 6 is given on p. 157 of Sailortown as "An' a bloody big 'ead, an' a dose of the pox." Stanza 7 is omitted, but given the situation, the less camouflaged line given in Sailor's Songs and Shanties (p. 160) becomes entirely transparent : Or yer head'll be thick an' yer fid'll be sore. A LONG TIME AGO (96-105) : Version F, of which only four stanzas
are given, is an " A-rovin' version (mainly bawdy)." Doerflinger
ellipsizes at one point on p. 41 and again on p. 43. ======================================================== MAGGIE MAY (404-05) : "The words I give here are modified somewhat." Hugill published what seems to be his original version in the british folk music magazine Spin in 1969. It contains lines concerning the Maggie and the sailor in bed, but by today's standards is thoroughly innocuous. At some point the chorus of the song "The Old Red Flannel Drawers that Maggie Wore" became tacked on to current versions of "Maggie May" as something of a coda, but Hugill does not allude to this development. THE MILKMAID (210-11) : "This is distinctly Rabelaisian and had to be camouflaged quite a lot...This version was also sung to the tune of Rio Grande , Goodbye, Fare-ye-well and others." In Shanties and Sailors' Songs Hugill mentions "unusually obscene words" (p. 122). Given the simple back-and-forth of the innocent "Milkmaid" song, which this parodies at least in its first half, most any kind of bawdy dialogue can be improvised and undoubtedly was. To the extent that the second half of the song had a more or less fixed text, one can only surmise that it related to the "Milking the Bull" song mentioned under "Blow the Man Down" above. I emphasize "surmise." Gordon recovered a bawdy version of the first half only. Probably permutations, adaptations, and improvisations on the milkmaid theme were frequently sung when circumstances permitted. MISS LUCY LONG (395-96) : Like Terry, Hugill offers "ring" as the operative verb, noting that the shanty was indeed sometimes sung with it, but other times a "much cruder one" was used. OH, AYE RIO (95-96) : Hugill maintains the "original theme" of this "entirely ribald" shanty "as much as possible." It is obviously a version of the WW I favorite "The German Officers," though it's tempting to read "ribald" as somewhat less imaginatively detailed than "obscene." Gordon, L. A. Smith, Colcord, Masefield, and Harlow all testify to the use of similar lyrics at sea, to different melodies, Gordon and Harlow placing the song as far back as the 1870s. It must have been quite popular. (As mentioned some time ago, I'm putting together a new look at all these "German Officer / Snapoo / Hinky Dinky / Mademoiselle from Armentieres" songs, and any of you who may have learned some version or other from oral tradition are urged to cough it up for allusion or inclusion. John Mehlberg, Jim Leary, and Warren Fahey have already done their more than their share - as did the unwitting Ed Cray in The Erotic Muse ; thanks again, guys.) PADDY DOYLE'S BOOTS (333-34) : A collection of unrhymed one-line solos. Two or three were usually enough to coordinate the effort of bunting a heavy sail, but Hugill says that "many" of the floating lines were "unprintable in their original state." One of them is undoubtedly the one he prints as "We'll all throw muck at the cook." PADDY LAY BACK (320-24) : Quite atypically, Hugill retains the words "bitch," "pox," "whore," and "son o' a bitch," yet he prefers not to print "clap" or "claps" on p. 324. The text of this song, familiarized in recent decades by the "revival," provides a good example of how some sailors treated essentially clean songs. If a more plainspoken term could be substituted for effect, in the appropriate company, it was. When Hugill sang the ordinarily unexceptionable "Common Sailors" on the stage at Mystic in '88, he began to sing "We're as good as any (bastards / buggers) on the shore," but caught himself in time to sing "lubbers" instead. On another occasion, where one singer (in print) has "You'll have to fight no more" in the broadside-style forebitter "Bold McCartney," Hugill has the grudgingly laudatory and rhetorically richer "you're a regular son of a whore." "A cruel hard life" in one version of "Rolling Down to Old Maui" becomes "a damn hard life" in another. And, we assume, so on. PRETORIA (425-26) : "Obscene to a degree...unprintable." A current Royal Navy burlesque, "Aladdin," may reveal what Hugill couldn't print. Hugill writes, "You make fast, I make fast, make fast the dinghy." The naval song offers as part of its chorus, "You make fast, kiss my ass, make fast the dinghy," sung to precisely the "Pretoria" tune. Stuart Frank mentions in his dissertation that he once heard Hugill in person sing the uncensored version of "Pretoria," and the chaste description fits the above exactly. But maybe there was more. If you're out there, Stuart, and have anything to add, please e-mail me. PUT YER SHOULDER NEXT TO MINE AND PUMP AWAY ! (508-509) : Hugill admits to "much blue-penciling," and no wonder. The original title was "Put Your Belly Next to Mine and Drive it On" or "Sheet it Home." Hugill's skill as a tamer of naughty songs was such that his sentimental text seemingly found its way into rugby lore close to forty years ago. RANDY DANDY O (167-68) : A "suggestive word" originally appearing in the refrain has been replaced and "two or three of the verses" are "slightly" altered. Years later, Hugill reportedly mentioned to one revival shanty singer that the "suggestive" word was "Ballocky." (Colcord gives it as "Galloping Randy-Dandy O," which is as close to confirmation as we're likely to get. The "two or three" altered verses are not positively identifiable, but "Heave away, bullies, ye parish-rigged bums, are prime candidates, along with "Come breast the bars, bullies." Still more on its way, believe it or not. Needless to say, if
there's anybody on this list who ever heard Stan singing his
"genuine" versions of camouflaged shanties (as he was wont to do
among friends), and can remember any of the words, please e-mail me. ======================================================== RATCLIFFE HIGHWAY (200-202) : "Verses 6 and 7 omitted....Much of the wording of this forebitter points to a naval origin, and that of the censored bawdy parts even more so." Doerflinger prints an expurgated version from Capt. Patrick Tayluer with the editor's discreet "etc." on p.115. Hugill printed a full version, with a different tune and chorus, in _Shanties & Sailor's Song_, pp. 211-213. Even this may be toned down here and there in terms of blunt diction, if the two minimal fragments collected by the late Cyril Tawney were typical of the song as often sung; these appear in _Grey Funnel Lines_ under the title of "Whale Island Anthem." Tawney and, in his footsteps, Louis Killen, have both recorded a version that is nearly identical to Hugill's 1969 text, but sung to a different tune. A private note from Tawney revealed that the song was collected by Patrick Suldham-Shaw in the Orkneys, and that its original LP performance on Topic's _Farewell Nancy_ in 1964 was exactly as Suldham-Shaw noted it. Aficionados will recognize "Cruising 'Round Yarmouth" as a variant of Hugill's song. According to a private communication from Jerry Silverman a few years back, the related "China Town Bumboat," in _The Dirty Song Book_ was noted during the '40s by a collector who has declined to take credit publicly. Rather than blow his cover here, I will only say that the collector confirmed Silverman's info in a personal note to me a few weeks later. Hugill wrote a series of articles on various songs mentioning the
street Ratcliffe Highway for the now defunct English magazine _Spin_
in 1969. Most or all of those songs then appeared in _Ships, Songs
and Shanties_ in 1977. In _Spin_ VI, No. 6, pp.16-17, Hugill finally
printed the two stanzas missing from his 1961 publication. They're
pretty graphic whether you understand nautical jargon or not : She clewed up her courses, we had much sea-room, We closed alongside, boys, I hauled in me slack, In _The Erotic Muse_, first edition, Ed published the lone version of the text collected by Gordon, app. in California in the early '20s. I wonder why he dropped it from the 2nd ed. It is not as full as either of Hugill's two uncensored texts. I could say more about this song, whose stanzas were often adapted for singing as a shanty to the tune of "Blow the Man Down," but will refrain so as to build suspense for the appearance of an essay on the subject which I've been working on for a number of years. I'm also waiting to see the text which Edith Folb collected in Canada many years ago. Watch this space. ROLLIN' HOME BY THE SILVERY MOON (180-181) : The later stanzas, rhyming on "rum," "claret," and "cider," Hugill says, are "mainly bawdy." The song is basically a version of the well known "Drink It Down." SACRAMENTO (107-114) : Hugill sang his unexpurgated version, which is thematically related to "Ratcliffe Highway" but is verbally much cruder, at Mystic in 1988. Richard Docker's recent _Uncensored Sailor Songs_CD offers that text and tune. "The Milkmaid" in Rabeliaisian form was also sung to the "Sacramento"/ "Camptown Races" tune. SALLY BROWN (161-167) : "There were many obscene verses." In _Sea Songs..._ (p.125), Hugill adds that these were "often about Sally's daughter." The only one known to come from the old days is that in Randolph-Legman as part of "Shenandoah" (see below), with Sally's name replacing the other. Doerflinger gives the song, with ellipsis and "etc.," on p. 76. A bit more to come. ===================================================== Part 12 has not been issued.
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