A Sailor Lad

Probably best known as "The Chandler's Wife," this ballad was widely popularized by both a popular song redaction in the 1950's and a mildly bawdy version recorded by Oscar Brand.
It is set to a tune commonly known as "The Lincolnshire Poacher," invariably identified by the three or four knocks on the table in the third or seventh line of the verses.

[ A ]

A sailor lad to shore was sent,
A bottle of wine to bring,
And when he arrove [sic] at the landlord's door,
Not a soul could he find there in.
	He rapped, he tapped, he called aloud
	But no[t] a voice replied
	Until he heard something go rap tap tap
	At the window over his head.

So Jack he raised his eyes aloft
To see what he could see,
And he caught the smile of a fair young face
And a wink from a bright blue eye [pron: eee].
	She rapped, she tapped, she beckoned to Jack	
	And he could not refuse,
	For when he though[t] of her rap tap tap
	He could not well refuse.

So Jack he gaily tripped aloft
With pants and waistcoat blue,
Tarpaulin hat and hair in curls
And a buckle all on his shoe.
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	When Jack he rose up off of her
	He swore that she was no whore
	For he knew by the blood on his rat tat tat [sic]
	That she never had done so before.

	This fragmentary version of the British broadside ballad was sent to Robert W. Gordon, then writing a column of "old songs men used to sing" for Adventure magazine, by M.D. Little, of Long Island City, New York, on February 10, 1927.   
Mr. Little and the contemporaneous informant of the "B" version were apparently of the last generation to recall the ballad.  Since then, the ballad seems to have slipped the collector's net.
For further references, see Malcolm Laws' American Balladry from British Broadsides?????????????

[ B ]

This fragment is included in the Canfield collection of folk songs sung in the United States in 1926, though it is both British in origin and much older.  Canfield's unidentified informant or correspondent added, "This is an old favorite of 15-20 years ago at the Columbia Crew Quarters at P'Ksie [Poughkeepsie]."


A sailor boy went out one night,
To get a bottle of rum,
And he knocked and he knocked and he knocked and he knocked
But never a soul would come.
	He beat upon the tavern door,
	As if to wake the dead,
	When sudden he heard a RAT-A-TAT-TAT
	In the chamber overhead.

"Come up, come up," the maiden said,
"And you and I'll agree,
That I've the finest RAT-A-TAT-TAT
That ever you did see!"

[The singer's memory failed him, until the last two lines of the song.]

*	*	*	*	*	*	*
*	*	*	*	*	*	*
They found him nursing his RAT-A-TAT-TAT
In the chamber overhead!