Shanties

Shanties And Sea Songs

    Movies like the Pirates of the Caribbean and Peter Pan take place on massive ships containing pirates and sailors but the key to the action scenes in movies is the music that changes your mood without you knowing. That's exactly the type of music I wanted to learn about pirate music or as it is actually called Shanties/ Chantys. The term Chanty is believed to originated from the French word Chanter which means to sing. 

Shanties in today's modern english is just a sea song but traditionally shanties are only songs that are about a sailors life and to ways to better coordinate manual labor on the ship. Why it is assumed that Shanties begun on Naval ships, that is incorrect. Shanties on naval ships were uncommon as it was seen as bad discipline, Whaling ships also had very few shanties as there were plenty more hands to divide the workload. Below is a Whaling sea song as far as we know about the occupation of Whaling. 

From the Alan Lomax collection, original recording of Asel TrueBlood recorded in 1938 by Alan Lomax, however Trueblood claims to have learned the song in 1888.

There are different kinds of Shanties that occur on board depending on what task is being accomplished. 

Stamp and Go Shanties: These shanties were sang specifically when they were hauling in inclement weather and for scraping barnacles off the bottom of the boat.  

Roll the Old Chariot

Roll the Woodpile Down 

Short Haul Shanties: They were shanties that were sung during a variety of minimal coordination tasks. These were also referred to as Short Pull Shanties. 

Haul Away 

Halyard Shanties: These shanties were sung while setting sail, this is also the largest category of shanties. These are also known as Capstan Shanties. 

Hanging Johnny

 

Pay Me Money Down 

Where Do Shanties come from?

Shanties are what is known as a call and response song, call and responses root from Africa. During the time sailing, Britain was known for having a diverse sailing crew including Africans. This being said all shanties are not African, different ethnic groups have different shanties. 

Most Popular British Sailing Shanties 

'Spanish Ladies' is a capstan shanty that describes a voyage from Spain to England. This tune talks about the women of Spain and was sung during activities that required a lot of physical strength. 

'Blow the Man Down' is another example of an English Shanty that references the Black Ball Line which was the first commercial shipping from Liverpool to New York through the atlantic ocean. 

'Haul Away' which was listed above is a short haul shanty which was often sung during long voyages between English ports and the ports of Australia.

'Sloop John B'  is a Bahamian shanty that was was very popular throughout the 19th century but lines from Sloop John B can be recognized in the Beach Boys 1966 song 'I wanna go home'.  

'Drop of Nelson's Blood' orginially that was as story that after Nelsons death in the Battle of  Trafalgar his body was preserved and his blood was drank by the sailors. This story later became told in song as 'Roll the Old Chariot', listed above. 

Shanties recently resurfaced as a trend on tik tok due to is repetitive rhythm and ever changing lyrics. The Wellerman is a shanty that went viral and many people began creating their own versions of the song.  

    Shanties were most often sung by men due to men mostly being sailors as sailing was considered to be too dangerous for women at the time. While shanties were created to pass time and help easy tasks many of the shanties today can be seen as vulgar, encouraging alcoholism, violence and overall very sexist. 

Shanties are nothing like what I thought I would be listening too, I was expecting something from Pirates of the Caribbean. However the traditional shanty shows what life was life for sailors and how hard it was. This also shows how long music has helped heal people, even when no instruments were available music was still made and changed. Sailors adored music which is how the tale of sirens began, luring sailors in with their voices. 

Traditional shanties are currently in a decline and aren't being used as much as work songs as they used to. Yet sea shanties were used up until the 1930s.

However in a way sea songs are still sung to this day, maybe not in a traditional sense. Everyone can recognized the songs of Pirates of the Caribbean and popular pop songs of the same style, were written with the traditional basic rhythm just changing the tune, words and including instrumentals. 

The history of Shanties cannot be traced to one specific origin but has a beautiful wordly blend due to the diverse ethnic background of each sailor. 

Sources:

https://www.classical-music.com/features/articles/five-best-sea-shanties/ 

https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2021/01/a-deep-dive-into-sea-shanties/#:~:text=During%20the%20logging%20season%2C%20many,where%20African%20American%20laborers%20lived https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/sea-shanty-facts-history-meaning

https://www.classical-music.com/features/articles/five-best-sea-shanties/