[60] Whatever their fundamental origins, by the late 19th century shanties constituted the heritage of international seamen, with little or no necessary national associations. to him) born of popular songs. "[121] He went on to explain, As a rule, the chantey in its entirety possesses neither rhyme nor reason; nevertheless, it is admirably fitted for sailors' work. Dass doch bald die Wellerman kommt, um uns Zucker und Tee und Rum zu bringen! Terry and Colcord's works were followed by numerous shanty collections and scores that also chose to use the "sh" spelling,[16] whereas others remained insistent that "ch" be retained to preserve what they believed to be the etymological origins of the term. [107] The book's "authoritative" position is bolstered by the personal image of its author. (Pressure of his publisher forced him to include two sea songs, clearly demarcated, at the end of the book. However, within the constraints of modern contexts, they tend to adhere to certain stylistic traits that are believed to have characterized the genre historically. My dad used to have a record of traditional sea shantys. Sailors sang shanties as they worked pumps up and down, removing water from the hold of the ship. Carr, James Revell, "New Sea Chantey Compilations On Compact Disc,", CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (, Learn how and when to remove this template message, minstrel songs of the late 1830s and 1840s, A demonstration of whaleboat shanties (video), Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys, "Ethnic Choices in the Presentation of Chanties: A Study in Repertoire", "Songs of the Sea: A General Description with Special Reference to Recent Oral Tradition in Ireland", The Library of Congress American Memory Collection, "What shall we do with a drunken sailor - Percy Grainger ethnographic wax cylinders - World and traditional music | British Library - Sounds", "Shenandoah - Percy Grainger ethnographic wax cylinders - World and traditional music | British Library - Sounds", "Blow boys blow - Percy Grainger ethnographic wax cylinders - World and traditional music | British Library - Sounds", "Whisky Johnny - Percy Grainger ethnographic wax cylinders - World and traditional music | British Library - Sounds", "Rio Grande - Percy Grainger ethnographic wax cylinders - World and traditional music | British Library - Sounds", "All away Joe - Percy Grainger ethnographic wax cylinders - World and traditional music | British Library - Sounds", "FTX-207-CAN'T YOU DANCE THE POLKA? The next revival in shanties occurred as part of the Anglophone folk music revival of the mid-20th century. Stylistic characteristics include lighter vocals with a "folk" timbre, livelier tempos, and instrumental interludes between verses. Many other performers followed, creating influential versions and interpretations of shanties that persist today. This is evidenced in the popular Folk music fake book Rise Up Singing, which includes such shanties as "Blow the Man Down," "What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor," and "Bound for South Australia". Sea shanties are songs traditionally sung by sailors or fishermen, usually to boost morale during long trips on the ocean. Items from the shanty and sea song repertoire have been brought into the repertoires of performers of folk music, rock, and Western classical music. They’re believed to be around 600 years old, and the name itself is thought to derive from the French verb ‘chanter’, meaning ‘to sing’. "Cheer'ly Man" makes notable appearances in the work of both Dana (sea experience 1834–36) and Herman Melville (sea experience 1841–42). Their rhythms may be syncopated and quite different from work song rhythms, relying on the instruments to keep time rather than the voice. [37] The evidence from these sources suggests that even in the mid-1830s the genre was still developing, which shifts the period of the rise and flourishing of shanties to a bit later than was previously accepted. Claim: The term "sea shanty," referring to traditional sailing work songs, is a misspelling of the term "sea chanty." Similarly, Alan Lomax's work starting in the 1930s, especially his field recordings of work songs in the Caribbean and Southern U.S., makes a significant contribution to the information on extant shanty-related traditions. A sea shanty such as this one was meant to help keep sailors on tempo as they worked on the ship. "[179] The only characteristic it appears to share with the shanty genre is a 6/8 meter (displayed by some well known shanties like "Blow the Man Down"). Rather than rhythmically timing the labor, shanties for heaving were more intended to set an appropriate, manageable pace and to occupy or inspire workers throughout the duration of what could often be long tasks. Shantymen (yes, those were a thing) would lead the other crew members in song while they worked. [48] Other such multi-job songs were: "Round the Corn(er), Sally", "Fire Down Below", "Johnny Come Down to Hilo", "Hilo, Boys, Hilo", "Tommy's Gone Away", "The Sailor Likes His Bottle-O", "Highland Laddie", "Mudder Dinah", "Bully in the Alley", "Hogeye Man", "Good Morning, Ladies, All", "Pay Me the Money Down", "Alabama, John Cherokee", "Yankee John, Stormalong", and "Heave Away (My Johnnies)".[37]. The result is a varied portrait of the genre, highlighting its maximum diversity without, however, giving a focused sense of what songs were most common during the heyday of shanties or in latter eras. This particular old-fashioned style of windlass was one that required workers to continually remove and re-insert "handspikes" (wooden leverage bars) into the device to turn its gears. Today, people on ShantyTok are establishing their own community by singing along to shanties and adding their own harmonies. The Australian-born composer and folklorist Percy Grainger collected various shanties and recorded them on wax cylinders in the early 1900s, and the recordings are available online courtesy of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library.[92][93][94][95][96][97]. Evans’ first TikTok sea shanty performance last month, a rendition of The Scotsman, racked up more than two million views, with users adding … However, the genre is an international one; practices vary freely and are not limited to the following generalizations. [68] In 1882, due to the proliferation of steamships, Alden was already lamenting the passing of shanties. By the 1920s, the proliferation of shanty collections had begun to facilitate a revival in shanty singing as entertainment for laypersons (see below), which in turn created a market for more shanty collections that were geared towards a general audience. According to Gibb Schreffler, an Assistant Professor of Music at Pomona College, European observers found African work-singers remarkable (as Schreffler infers from tone of their descriptions). W hile 2021 has already served up plenty of wretched bombshells, the best surprise of the past two weeks might be TikTok’s biggest new trend: sea shanties. Similarly, Norwegian uses sjømannsvise as the broad category and the borrowed term sjanti (also spelled "shanty") or the native oppsang for work songs. [173] Quotes of "Blow the Man Down" were particularly plentiful. They required a coordinated show of focused exertion, not sustained, but rather at specific moments. [103], English folklorist Peter Kennedy recorded Stanley Slade of Bristol, England, thought to be 'The Last Shantyman',[104] singing several shanties including 'Haul Away, Joe', 'Leave Her, Johnny' and 'Shenandoah', and the recordings are available online via the British Library Sound Archive. Their use as work songs became negligible in the first half of the 20th century. [124] Shanties, and short videos of them being sung, saw a spike in popularity in late 2020 into early 2021 mainly due to a trend on TikTok.[167][168]. Examples of sea songs include "Spanish Ladies",[155] first popular in the Royal Navy,[156] and "The Stately Southerner", a ballad about a U.S. war ship. The English poet John Masefield, following in the footsteps of peers like Rudyard Kipling,[77] seized upon shanties as a nostalgic literary device, and included them along with much older, non-shanty sea songs in his 1906 collection A Sailor's Garland. The term "sea shanty/chantey" has become a staple of popular usage, where it helps to disambiguate the work song genre from other meanings of the word "shanty". For example, Lloyd's personal interpretation of "South Australia" was taken up by the Irish folk revival group The Clancy Brothers, from which this version spread to countless folk performers to become established as the "standard" form of what is usually presented as a "traditional" shanty. Along the African coast you will hear that dirge-like strain in all their songs, as at work or paddling their canoes to and from shore, they keep time to the music. This man, known in the minstrel profession as "Old Emmett", caught the true spirit of the African melodies—the lawless, half-mournful, half-exulting songs of the Kroomen. Think of a group of pirates working on a deck of a ship while singing. In the place of a rousing "pulling song," we now hear the rattle of the steam-winch; and the modern windlass worked by steam, or the modern steam-pump, gives us the clatter of cogwheels and the hiss of steam in place of the wild choruses of other days. While this may have simply been a customary way of presenting songs or attempting to frame their tonality, it may also suggest they hoped their examples could be performed, as well. It is common to find phrases from minstrel songs of the late 1830s and 1840s in many shanties, like "A Long Time Ago," "Jamboree," "Johnny Come Down to Hilo," or "Johnny Bowker." The forms these performers produce tend to be quite standardized and relate to their source material similar to the way a cover song does. The rhythm of the song served to synchronize the movements of the sailors or to pace the labor as they toiled at repetitive tasks. In the navy, of course, this sort of song was never permitted. Shanties reflect a variety of source material. Thus while European sailors had learned to put short chants to use for certain kinds of labor, the paradigm of a comprehensive system of developed work songs for most tasks may have been contributed by the direct involvement of or through the imitation of African-Americans. Invariably these performers choose to accompany themselves on instruments such as guitar and banjo. Sea shanties fueled the spirits of sailors and boat workers for hundreds of years. "[54] The implication is that this song was similar to a sailor song, probably the well-known shanty, "Haul Away, Joe" or "Haul Away for Rosie", viz. Writers have characterized the origin of shanties (or perhaps a revival in shanties, as William Main Doerflinger theorized[2]) as belonging to an era immediately following the War of 1812 and up to the American Civil War. Shipping Board in 1918 when Stanton H. King of Boston, a merchant sailor of the 1880s, was appointed as "Official Chantey Man for the American Merchant Marine. A step up in sophistication from the sing-outs was represented by the first widely established sailors' work song of the 19th century, "Cheer'ly Man". "Heaving" (pushing) actions were of a continuous nature. Work proceeded to the strains of a fiddle, to the piping of the boatswain and his mates, or in earlier times yet, to the trumpet. Detailed reference to shipboard practices that correspond to shanty-singing was extremely rare before the 1830s. Recent performances range from the "traditional" style of practitioners within a revival-oriented, maritime music scene, to the adoption of shanty repertoire by musicians in a variety of popular styles. The phrase "sea shanty" carries a similar redundancy to that of the phrases "ATM machine" or "chai tea", in that the word "shanty" alone already conveys the meaning of a sea-related work song. I doubt if the most ancient amongst them is much older than the century. [110] In general, shanty performance by laypersons, up through the first two decades of the 20th century, would have been hindered by the lack of suitable resources, if not lack of interest. [118] By the late 1970s, the activities of enthusiasts and scholar-performers at places like the Mystic Seaport Museum (who initiated an annual Sea Music Festival in 1979) and the San Francisco Maritime Museum established sea music—inclusive of shanties, sea songs, and other maritime music—as a genre with its own circuit of festivals, record labels, performance protocol, and so on. [106] It is the largest of its kind, owing to Hugill's methodology and chronological position. What is a Sea Shanty? The shanty is a multilingual art that demands a sailor’s sophisticated knowledge of sailing, sea slang, and geography. In much of the shanty repertoire known today one finds parallels to the minstrel songs that came to popularity from the 1840s. In contrast to many of the academic folklorists who had collected shanties before him, Hugill possessed the look and pedigree of an old-time sailor, and he was actually able to perform the songs from his collection at sea music festivals. A sea shanty is a type of ‘work song’, traditionally sung by sailors and those working on merchant boats to help them stay in time while they perform tasks together on boats. [81] Lyrics and ideas from Masefield's collection became among the most quoted or plagiarized in later shanty collections,[82] and by their sheer ubiquity these contributed to 20th century audiences' perceptions of the genre. They tend to be more interested in the songs themselves and less in the "shanty style" of performance, in favor of music that may be considered more pleasant, less rough, and with more variation and interest than traditional shanties offer. Other shanties were adapted from land-based traditional songs, for example "Billy Boy" and "The Derby Ram.". He claimed they were singing, "Heigh Jim along, Jim along Josey, Heigh Jim along, Jim along Jo! Sea shanties are traditional songs originally created and sung by sailors at sea. A shanty in Polish is szanta. Also known as Sea shanty TikTok, can best be described as the platform’s new obsession with sea shanties. It is a great thing in a sailor to know how to sing well, for he gets a great name by it from the officers, and a good deal of popularity among his shipmates. It is possible that the long, monotonous task of heaving the capstan had long inspired the singing of time-passing songs of various sorts, such as those in The Quid. These most often are not portrayed in an appropriate work context and sometimes not even a shipboard context, and many times they can be classed as anachronisms that serve to bring color and interest to the drama. They are especially popular in the Netherlands, Germany, and Norway. Shanties had antecedents in the working chants of British and other national maritime traditions, such as those sung while manually loading vessels with cotton in ports of the southern United States. The "shanty-man"—the chorister of the old packet ship—has left no successors. those who were not mentioning shanties only in passing) often used the "ch" spelling, regardless of their nationality. - STANLEY SLADE - Bristol Shellback Shantyman", "Stanley Slade, Bristol (Kennedy 1950 and BBC 1943) - Peter Kennedy Collection - World and traditional music | British Library - Sounds", "Sea shanties are going viral on TikTok. Sea shanties are songs that sailors sang while they worked. These songs have a rhythm that goes with their work so that they keep on doing their work in sync and amuse themselves while doing it. In the context of the sea shanty, the term ‘Wellerman’ applies to the supply ships sent from the company. A notable instance where many non-maritime music performers tackled the traditional maritime repertoire stems from the actor Johnny Depp's reported interest in shanties that developed while filming Pirates of the Caribbean. The shanty genre was typified by flexible lyrical forms, which in practice provided for much improvisation and the ability to lengthen or shorten a song to match the circumstances. Singing and steam are irreconcilable. In case you’ve been living under a rock, … The following is a sample list of notable films to have included traditional shanty repertoire. "[6] While telling of another voyage out of Provincetown, Mass. There are three basic types of sea shanties, with a different type being used for each different task. The only songs that in any way resemble them in character are "Dixie", and two or three other so-called negro songs by the same writer. His, then, was an impression of shanties based on their style and manner of performance, and he was writing at a time when shanties had yet to become framed by writers and media as belonging to any canon of national "folk music". "Hauling" (pulling) actions were intermittent in nature. [91] And whereas Bullen's work was fairly inaccessible, Sharp was influential as the leader of a cohort of scholars who were actively creating the young field of folk song research. Some of the preferred characteristics are smooth, pop-style vocal timbre, carefully worked out harmony, and engaging rhythms. They were barbaric in their wild melody. The cheerful chanty was roared out, and heard above the howl of the gale. For example, an observer in Martinique in 1806 wrote, "The negroes have a different air and words for every kind of labour; sometimes they sing, and their motions, even while cultivating the ground, keep time to the music. A few of the editors of early shanty collections provided arrangements for pianoforte accompaniment with their shanties. The title of Sharp's work reflects his project of collecting and grouping shanties as part of what he conceived to be a rather continuous English folk song tradition. A sea shanty is a working song sung by sailors while performing repetitive tasks upon a ship. [52] An early article to offer an opinion on the origin of shanties (though not calling them by that name), appearing in Oberlin College's student paper in 1858, drew a comparison between Africans' singing and sailor work songs. They were said to sing "old ditties", along with which a few verses to one or more songs is given. Here's why", "The tender masculinity of Shanty TikTok", "Sea shanties are your soundtrack of 2021. Singing has been a part of life at sea for centuries. A-screwing cotton by the day? One writer about shanties warned his readers that their lyrics, to landsmen, would "probably appear as the veriest doggerel. One of the earliest published uses of this term for such a song came in G. E. Clark's Seven Years of a Sailor's Life, 1867. This resulted in a demand for sailors, who spent long hours at sea working the lines of the ships. An amateur folklorist, Lloyd discarded the earlier classical style of presentations in favor of a more "authentic" performance style. The wind was whistling through the rigging, loose ropes flying about; loud and, to me, unintelligible orders constantly given and rapidly executed, and the sailors "singing out" at the ropes in their hoarse and peculiar strains. Howard, Henry, "Manning the New Merchant Marine,", "Sea Chanteys Kept Alive. Sea shanties are traditional songs originally created and sung by sailors at sea. “Sea shanty Tok” is the latest internet sensation, with large groups of TikTokers joining in to sing seafaring songs together online. [14] What set apart this and following collections was full musical score along with an adequate stock of lyrics. "[131] A few shanties have ballad forms, such as "The Dreadnaught," "The Banks of Newfoundland," and "The Golden Vanitee", but these were relatively uncommon and required the addition of a chorus section. Sometimes sailors would change the rhythm of one type of shanty to fit the task at hand. Some performers focus on shanties, sea songs, and related material, as part of the genre of maritime music, whereas in other cases performers of popular music (including the Folk genre) and classical music bring songs from the shanty repertoire into their own. Seriously", "Everyone's Singing Sea Shanties (or Are They Whaling Songs? [159] At these sessions, any participant is free to start up and lead a shanty, which the rest of those present—sometimes over one hundred or more participants—join on the choruses. Sea Shanties are the type of songs people used to sing together while working aboard huge ships in ancient times. These requirements called for an efficient and disciplined use of human labor. The cable held very hard, and when it surged over, the windlass sent the men flying about the deck, as if a galvanic battery had been applied to their hands. But sea shanties traditionally take a very particular form: They are generally 'call and response' songs, with one singer (known as a 'shantyman') leading and everyone else replying with the chorus. I think it may be taken that we owe the sailors' working song as we now possess it to the Americans. A sea shanty, chantey, or chanty is a type of work song that was once commonly sung to accompany labour on board large merchant sailing vessels. Men singing sea shanties on fishing boat in the 1800s. The term shanty most accurately refers to a specific style of work song belonging to this historical repertoire. He was generally mysterious about the sources of his shanty arrangements; he obviously referred to collections by editors like Sharp, Colcord, and Doerflinger, however it is often unclear when and whether his versions were based in field experience or his private invention. Similar to the blues, shanties often exhibited a string of such verses without much explicit or continuous theme. Sea shanties were sung specifically for work purposes among sailors and were popularized in the 1860s and 1870s. However, shantymen more often adapted lyrics and themes from ballads and "spliced" them to existing shanty melodies and choruses. Swedish uses sjömansvisa, "sailor song," as a broad category, but tends to use the borrowed "shanty" to denote a work song. They are frequently identified with a specific port town to which they belong. The term shanty most accurately refers to a specific style of work song belonging to this historical repertoire. [84] He took a firm stance that only true work songs should be included in his collection, thus resisting the temptation to let shanties slide into the genres of ballads or other off-duty songs. Sea shanties are old songs which were traditionally sung by sailors, fishermen or whalers at sea. The shanties of the 19th century could be characterized as a sort of new "technology" adopted by sailors to adapt to this way of shipboard life. Improvisation and stock verses were the tools of the trade of shantymen. Singing has been a part of life at sea for centuries. All (refrain): Way-ay-ya, Shanties flourished from at least the fifteenth century through the days of steam ships in the first half of the 20th century. In French, chant de marin or "sailor's song" is a broad category that includes both work and leisure songs. For example, the bawdy sea song "Frigging in the Rigging" was recorded by the punk band Sex Pistols. So for example, Masefield implied that the shanty "A-roving" (which he titled "The Maid of Amsterdam") was derived from Thomas Heywood's The Tragedy of the Rape of Lucrece (1608). The Australian composer Percy Grainger is a notable case. While songs with maritime themes were sung, all manner of popular songs and ballads on any subject might be sung off watch. Appearances of shanties, or songs and melodies labeled as "shanties," in popular media can be anachronistic and fanciful. In one of his earlier articles,[80] his shanties are set to melodies taken verbatim from Davis and Tozer's earlier work, and he mentions having utilized that and the other widely available collection (L.A. Smith, 1888) as resources. The decade of the 1870s represents the zenith of the genre; those sailors who first went to sea after that decade are considered not to have seen shanties in their prime. [1] Shanty songs functioned to synchronize and thereby optimize labor, in what had then become larger vessels having smaller crews and operating on stricter schedules. Hugill readily included more recently popular songs—those that evidently were not sung until after the shanty genre was experiencing decline, but which were extant when Hugill sailed (1920s–40s). As a result, in 2006 Depp helped facilitate Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys. They were designed to be sung together while working on the ships - … Shantymen (yes, those were a thing) would lead the other crew members in song while they worked. A well-known early example, though not strictly speaking a reference to a shanty, is the song "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest", which was invented by Robert Louis Stevenson for his novel Treasure Island (1883). Many songs that we think of as sea shanties in modern times are actually “Foc'sle” songs that the sailors sang during their free time, but not real historical sea shanties. A sea shanty is a working song sung by sailors while performing repetitive tasks upon a ship. [176][177][178], The musical style of shanties has also inspired new musical compositions, ranging from those designed to imitate 19th century song-style to those merely intended to evoke seafaring culture through evocative phrases and token musical features. How did the Sea Shanty TikTok trend start? This is attested by its use by institutions such as maritime museums and the U.S. The equivalents in German are Seemannslied and, again, shanty. [refrain], (The refrain in these cases may be any; that is, the stock verses may be fitted to any of a number of shanties having a similar tune-chorus form.). By the time of the American Civil War, the shanty form was fully developed, after which its repertoire grew and its implementation was widespread and rather standardized. Sometimes, when no one happened to strike up, and the pulling, whatever it might be, did not seem to be getting forward very well, the mate would always say, "Come, men, can't any of you sing? [119] A sailor would not generally sign on as a shantyman per se, but took on the role in addition to their other tasks on the ship. Shanties were sung without instrumental accompaniment and, historically speaking, they were only sung in work-based rather than entertainment-oriented contexts. In these, coordination was of minor importance as compared to pacing. And then some one of them would begin, and if every man's arms were as much relieved as mine by the song, and he could pull as much better as I did, with such a cheering accompaniment, I am sure the song was well worth the breath expended on it. A sea shanty is a type of song that was popular on board large sailing vessels, like merchant and whaling ships, in the 1700s and 1800s. Work tasks might be of any length and often unpredictable. Commercial musical recordings, popular literature, and other media, especially since the 1920s, have inspired interest in shanties among landlubbers. Much of the historical shanty repertoire, being by definition designed to suit work, is less attractive as entertainment listening. For example, the phrase "girl with the blue dress on" is documented in a Black muledriver's song[126] and in a popular minstrel song,[127] as well as in a few shanties, for example, O wake her, O shake her, [citation needed] Another newly composed song by folk singer Steve Goodman, "Lincoln Park Pirates," uses the phrase, "Way, hey, tow 'em away," imitating shanty choruses while at the same time anachronistically evoking the "piracy" in its subject. This couplet is documented in many sources; here it is drawn from: Whitmarsh, "The Chantey-man," p. 321. [107] Shanties from the Seven Seas and Stan Hugill's performances have had a tremendous bearing on how shanties have been understood and performed by enthusiasts since the second half of the 20th century up to today. Others have been fascinated by "sea" themes, including "pirates" and the perceived freedom, wildness, or debauchery of sailor culture. However, these older songs can be distinguished from the later type of songs that were given the label shanty, suggesting there were other formative influences that gave birth to an appreciably new and distinctly recognized phenomenon. "[citation needed] The theme to Gilligan's Island was also inspired by shanty structure and style.

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