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Have you ever been sorry you asked something? Don’t be! PLSJ’s Reference Librarian J.L. finds the answers to questions you thought might not even have an answer.
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Speaker 1 00:00:08 Welcome to PLS J's podcast, where the public library of Steubenville in Jefferson county shares with you. Our favorite quirky questions finds out what leaders in our community are reading interviews, local authors, and so much more. This podcast is part of the ask us series where the reference librarian shares answers to some of our favorite questions from the past and provides information on topics you've pondered, but didn't know who to ask. Now you do
Speaker 2 00:00:40 Hello. It's me JL your reference librarian. And I guess this one might come with some sort of warning, if not for language, which I will try to keep clean for the fact that whether you like it or not, I'm going to be singing. What I'm going to be singing is a few examples of sea shanties. Now, if you've been on TikTok lately, or even on YouTube, or if you've played popular video games like Assassin's creed, you've heard examples of sea shanties. What are sea shanties? They're working songs. These are songs that sailors used to keep in time with the work they were doing. Work on ships was tedious. Think of a ship as a big machine. And each of the parts of those machines from pulling up the anchor to unfurling the sail, to turning the sail into the wind was all done by muscle power.
Speaker 2 00:01:41 And that kind of muscle power works best when the you're doing it in rhythm and unison and shanties were the way that they did that. How long ago were shanties invented? Most of the shanties we have seem to come from the 18th and 19th century. There have been newer shanties written, but the working shanties were definitely used in this time. This was the height of the age of sale. Before that they did keep in rhythm, think of the drummer on a galley that they used to keep people rowing in rhythm sailors were definitely known to have used chance called heve hoeing before that too heve, hoeing being exactly what it sounds like. He ho he ho you can hear a rhythm there. And if you're pulling on a rope or even pulling on an ore that rhythm, like the Cosman on a rowing shell will keep that rhythm.
Speaker 2 00:02:42 So those were there and the chant could possibly be an origin for the word shanty. Now, is it shanty or shanty? The answer is yes. And what I'm saying as the either pronunciation and any number of spellings are all correct. It does seem that Chanty seems to be more American while shanty seems to be more European, but again, either one is considered correct. So I will try to use shanty just because most of the sources that I used for this use that word. But if I slip and use Chanty, I'm definitely not making a mistake. Now, there were sailors songs, too. We know this sailors like people in any profession had songs they sang of their profession. A good example of that can be found in Shakespeare's the Tempest, the master, the SWER, the gunner, and his mate that comes from the Tempest. And that is generally set to a nautical tune.
Speaker 2 00:03:55 And it's possible that Shakespeare would've heard that down by the London docs, or he very likely wrote it himself, but that said it was not by any appearance, a working shanty. Now there were non-working shanties. And we'll get into that a little bit later. The actual work songs and shanties started showing up at the height of the age of sale. It's important to note too, that other people who were known to have songs that they used as work songs were enslaved people in the fields. You know, you've all heard the spirituals and the working songs, and yes, some of those did work their way on to ships. And definitely with the people who sung them, if you were a freed black person, a ship was a place where you could find employment. And these black men were often very valued as Hanman. And yes, occasionally slaves did find their way onto ships.
Speaker 2 00:04:56 They were often put to work on ships with their master, getting the pay. But again, many of the men working on ships had been freed, and we have evidence of black men working in many nautical professions, including Christmas addicts. The first man to be killed in the American revolution was a free black sailor. And again, these men were very valued. The ones who could sing as shanty men. In other words, the person who would sing the main part of the shanty while the crew sang the response, most working shanties were a callin response with the shanty men singing a verse and the crew singing the response. And this would go on for as long as it took whatever work to be done. Sometimes this meant that it would go on for quite a while, which meant the shanty men had to often improvise, verses, add verses about his fellow sailors, add verses about the officers, say dirty things and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2 00:06:07 And there were different types of shanties for different tasks. Some ships had specific shanties and some shanty men had specific shanties. And some of them would often recycle, say a short haul to a long haul shanty. If they didn't know another one, or the crew had stated that they were tired of something, but there were a lot of different ones. And you had short haul shanties, short haul shanties were for obviously pulling on ropes, usually tasks that weren't going to take more than a few coordinated tugs, such as moving the yard to match the wind, pulling a boat up off the water onto its D, things like that. So such things as haul on the bull haul on the bull. And so early in the morning, haul on the, in the bull and haul on the bull in the captain. He's a call and haul on the, in the hall.
Speaker 2 00:07:14 And this could go on for as long or as short as you needed. If you really had to pull something long, like the HD, which was used to raise and unfurl the sail, you would ha use what they called a long haul shanty. Generally more crew were used on a long haul shanty. And often people like cabin boys or small sailors would take a high place. And when the petty officer or the shanty men would yell, hang that particular crew man holding onto the rope would jump to add a little ooph to the other men, pulling on the line, which led to such shanties as one called hanging Johnny. And then of course, the most famous of all long hell shanties is blow the man down. As I was a walking ter I street to me way, Hey, blow the man down a lovely young Damel.
Speaker 2 00:08:15 I happen to meet. Don't give me some time to blow the man down and blow the man down. By the way, does not have anything to do with the wind, but to knock a man down is with a blow from your fist. In other words, I wanna punch that sky and blow the man down or other such shanties could go on for quite a while. And again, you're adding verses about various crew members or other people that you might want to knock down with blows. You also had shanties for such tasks as pumping or pulling on various wind lists on the ship. And the largest windless was called the ston. This was a big drum in the middle of the ship around such things as the anchor chain would be wound. And there was handles off to the side of the ston and the men would slowly push around as they went around in a circle, slowly pulling the anchor up. And so cap shanties were often very slow and again would be added to, and the most famous of those is of course Shenandoah. Oh, she, to see you and here your rolling river.
Speaker 2 00:09:40 Oh, I to see you where we're bound away across the wide me beautiful song, I've always loved that one. And now when you hear it, you can think of men slowly walking in a circle, singing this song to make the work just a little bit lighter and thinking maybe about that river. And then you had ceremonial shanties ships generally did have ceremonies on board. Everybody of course thinks of the typical Landsman ceremonies, but the tedium could be broken up by things that were particular to sailors. One thinks about the current Naval tradition of crossing the line, where the sailors will throw kind of a welcome party for those new sailors who are crossing the equator for the first time. And a similar one that was often done on sailing ship was called paying off the dead horse where you see when the ship was in port, the sailor had to find lodgings.
Speaker 2 00:11:02 They weren't allowed to stay on board and they would often get an advance on their first month's pay to keep their landlord happy. And so it meant that you would have that advance. And your first month on the ship, you were basically working for that money. And they called that paying off a dead horse. And so at the end of that first month, they would often have a ceremony called paying off the dead horse. And there was a Shante called the dead horse and they would make a horse's effigy out of an old barrel. And they would pull it along the deck often with a shanty man, a stride, and throw it overboard to symbolize that they were now working for themselves. Oh, polar man came riding by, as we say so. And we know, so a poor old man came riding by a poor old man.
Speaker 2 00:12:02 Then the horse would be seen floating off the back of the ship and they could think about now the landlord has his money and I can make mine. And a final kind of shanty that is always worth mentioning or what they called folks L shanties or four bits folks, L shanties were the shanties that were not sung as work songs though. Some of them did have choruses and call response. Some of them were dirty and some of them were just longing songs for when I returned home. Maybe that girl I left behind me or, or the child I hoped to see when I get home or just be on dry land. Remember that some of these ships were at sea for a while. Wailing ships would go for years in what was an extremely dangerous profession. And so you would get longing for home. And folks will shanties were often about that.
Speaker 2 00:12:59 And sometimes they were just lighter sea songs that you would sing over a bath and gallon ship, bene affair and the favor and breathe, and a bully crew and a captain too, to carry me or the seas carry me over the seas. Me boys Witcher the far away for on taking a trip on a government ship, 10,000 miles away, solo wins high than I will go. I'll stay no more on air shore. Hear the fiddlers play I'm off from the bounding main. And I won't be back again from on the move to my own food loved 10,000 miles away. And so the folks will slung and others are still sung today. Maybe not at sea and in bars and concert halls all through the country. And in places like Nova Scotia, where the sea is still an important part of their life and other maritime places like new Orleans or new England and hunting talk and in video games.
Speaker 2 00:14:02 So I'm going to leave you with another ceremonial shanty. This one was often sung. When the ship had put to port, they were pumping her out for the last time the men were gathering their belongings to take ashore. And the next day they would get paid and they would be leaving the ship in port for their homes. So I wanted you to think about those men doing that last work and hear this song coming over the folk soul. I thought I heard the old man say, leave her John two more tomorrow. We will get your pay and it's time for us to leave her. Leave her John, leave her, oh, leave her Johnny. Leave her for the voyages along. And the winds don't blow and it's time for us to leave her. Although wind was fall in the wave waves, ran high, leave her, she should green and by, and it's time to
Speaker 1 00:15:31 Thanks for listening to PLS J's podcast. Visit us in person at your library, branch or [email protected]. Have a question you want the answer to visit the library's website at Steuben, the library.org or emailed the reference [email protected]. That's S C H I a PPA, B R a N C H S E O L I B R a R I E s.org.
