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"When everyone else was listening to Cream, I was listening to A.L. Lloyd and
Ewan
McColl. These were two old guys who used to record together, trying to
replicate the
original instrumentation of sea shanties...Some of the words were absolutely
unbelievable...I loaned the LP to Beefheart and he probably still has it." -
FRANK
ZAPPA as noted in THE LOST EPISODES.
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The songs on this disc are either work songs - shanties - or diversionary songs
- foc'sle songs or forebitters - sung during the evening dog watch, when the
men gathered round a squeeze-box in the foc'sle or, in fair weather, sat around
the bitts or around the fore-hatch.
The great days of sailor-singing were in the first two thirds of the nineteenth
century, when the really fast ships were evolved. When 'If the men don't sing
right, the ship don't move right' was the axiom, and a good shanty-man was
always sure of a job on a fast clipper.
Roughly, shanties are of three kinds: capstan shanties, used for such jobs as
weighing anchor; halliard shanties for hoisting the heavy yards; short drag
shanties for taking in slack or hauling on sheets and braces.
Notes based on material supplied by A.L. Lloyd and Ewan MacColl.
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side one
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THE BLACK BALL LINE.
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Ships of this line had a red swallow tail flag with a black ball
in the middle. They ran from New York to Liverpool.
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DO ME AMA.
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A foc'sle song. This version is a little fuller than those printed.
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REUBEN RANZO.
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A halyard shanty. Ranzo is probably a corruption of Lorenzo,
and refers to men from the Azores who shipped aboard whalers.
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THE HANDSOME CABIN BOY.
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A l9th century broadside ballad, that remained a steady seller
in fairs and back streets of provincial towns for more than sixty
years.
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A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
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A halliard shanty deriving from a mid nineteenth century minstrel
song. 'A Long Time Ago'.
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side two
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STORMALONG.
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A shanty for manning the capstan or pumps.
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THE COAST OF PERU.
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Is a song from the hey-day of Pacific spermwhaling; between the 1790's and the
1840's.
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THE GAUGER.
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A gauger is an exciseman. This song dates from about 150 years ago, when liquor
smuggling was going strong on the South-East coast of Scotland.
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SALLY RACKET.
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This version of the song probably comes from the ships running to the West
Indies. The tune resembles the Jamaican tune Mr. Ramgoat.
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