Sea Shanties

Let’s talk about sea shanties for a moment. Sea shanties with their energetic call-and-response rhythm helped sailors work as a team. Now, not to typecast sailors, but being men in a men’s society during the Age of Sail, naturally their songs tended to be on the bawdy side. I tell ye true, Moi had trouble finding clean songs for the tender age level of my books.

It was taboo for sailors to sing shanties ashore; ye were courting trouble, mate. Instead, they sang popular ballads and love songs. There was no rhyme or reason for sailor superstition. Most, not all, of those ship songs are lost to history.

There have been several revivals of sea shanties. In the 50s and 60s, Pete Seeger and the Weavers along with The Kingston Trio included sea shanties in their performances. Then, there was Bruce Springsteen, and now the latest revival is a viral trend on TikTok. Has anyone heard of ShantyTok?

Please note that the original songs were sung at the speed in which the men worked. In short, much slower than the pace set by today’s performers. Try pulling that heavy canvas sail on a tall mast ship. I did. It ain’t easy, and I had a dozen mates pulling with me. I had no breath to yell out a response to anything let alone a shanty.

Since shanties were an essential feature of sea culture, I used several in my Sailing the High Seas series. Book 1 was Haul on the Bowline, an ancient, short drag shanty. Book 2 was Fish in the Sea, a Blow the Man Down version. Book 3, Heave ye bullies, heave is the refrain. I forgot to record the source for that one and the song title. Aargh!