SEA SHANTIES - breaking news, gossip, piracy, pressgangings, etc.

jenks

thread death
Being a town that still has a fishing community - mainly cockles which are exported almost entirely to Spain - we have quite a tradition of hairy men in pubs singing shanties. Every year there’s a folk Carol service with locals doing their turns singing lost songs. It always finishes with the Farewell Shanty (from Padstow originally) I always find it deeply affecting sung by a whole congregation and must admit it’s one of the things I missed most this Christmas. Here’s the audio of The Unthanks’ version
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Being a town that still has a fishing community - mainly cockles which are exported almost entirely to Spain - we have quite a tradition of hairy men in pubs singing shanties. Every year there’s a folk Carol service with locals doing their turns singing lost songs. It always finishes with the Farewell Shanty (from Padstow originally) I always find it deeply affecting sung by a whole congregation and must admit it’s one of the things I missed most this Christmas.
Probably someone is already doing a lengthy piece on this but in some ways sea shanties conjur up all the things that are missing now? Community, pubs, travel, adventure, music that can only happen with a bunch of people together (and no machines), big bellowing voices that would transmit COVID in a confined space, etc.
 

muser

Well-known member
Probably someone is already doing a lengthy piece on this but in some ways sea shanties conjur up all the things that are missing now? Community, pubs, travel, adventure, music that can only happen with a bunch of people together (and no machines), big bellowing voices that would transmit COVID in a confined space, etc.
Also loads of people stuck at home playing Assassin's Creed and Brexit.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Hark now, ye scurvy land-lubbers!


Lovely five part-version here:

The ginger one reminds me of the guy from Bait. Who was also a fisherman although I imagine that being a whaler was probably the premier league of fishing types (not now where it's just Japanese or Norwegians typing into a laptop and torpedoing them from a hundred miles away I imagine).
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
'Electroshanty' sounds like it should be the worst thing ever, but I actually quite like that version.

Edit: in the Twitter thread @jenks posted, I mean.
 
Last edited:

IdleRich

IdleRich
I'm not a fan of hunting in any of its forms but - rightly or wrongly - it seems somehow better in Moby Dick style when the whale (or whatever it is) has a fighting chance of dragging you to the bottom.
Isn't there a saying something like "Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you" - but nowadays when you have a telescopic sight and loads of technology and the bear doesn't stand a chance, it's never gonna get you. It's not fair on the animal and it's not fair on our language.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I'm not a fan of hunting in any of its forms but - rightly or wrongly - it seems somehow better in Moby Dick style when the whale (or whatever it is) has a fighting chance of dragging you to the bottom.
Isn't there a saying something like "Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you" - but nowadays when you have a telescopic sight and loads of technology and the bear doesn't stand a chance, it's never gonna get you. It's not fair on the animal and it's not fair on our language.
This seems like a fair confrontation. It's also possibly the most Australian thing that has ever happened.

 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Bit of an obvious choice, this one:


Last year, before our little lad had really got the hang of walking, me and my partner had fun singing that song to him while he was sat on the living room floor, with me accompanied us on my bass so that he could feel the vibrations as well as hear the music. (I should point out that he apparently enjoyed it too, before anyone suspects that it was an elaborate form of child abuse.)

Top comment on that video is "Man this is nostalgic, I remember back in 1730 when me and my friends would dance to this until sundown."
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Of course there is a dodgy anthropomorphism going on with the fairness thing... bear doesn't care if the battle is fair, just wants to go home and kill smaller animals and eat honey. But we've created the concept and now we have to be aware of it I guess. I blame The Old Man and the Sea.
 
Top