{"id":563,"date":"2008-11-18T12:10:22","date_gmt":"2008-11-18T11:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/diffusion.org.uk\/?p=563"},"modified":"2010-02-22T00:10:55","modified_gmt":"2010-02-21T23:10:55","slug":"sea-shanties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diffusion.org.uk\/?p=563","title":{"rendered":"Sea Shanties"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Download<\/strong>
\nSea Shanties Volume 1 A4<\/a> | US Letter<\/a> PDF 360kb
\nSea Shanties Volume 2 A4<\/a> | US Letter<\/a> PDF 395kb<\/p>\n

Selected<\/strong> and Introduced<\/strong> for Short Work<\/a> by Francis McKee, director of Glasgow International<\/a> (2004-08),\u00a0CCA Glasgow<\/a> and Research Fellow at Glasgow School of Art<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Beyond society\u2019s canons of literature there are the outlaws – songs and stories that survive in the wild. Sea shanties are among the hardiest of these forms and all the more remarkable for having their roots in a vanished world of sailing ships. There is a raw surrealism in sea shanties that is bred from endless nights in the belly of tomb-like wooden hulks floating on deep swelling oceans. The wild ramblings (\u2018Cape Cod kids ain’t got no sleds\/They slide down the hills on codfish heads\u2019) are tempered by the disciplined, rope burned, rhythms of the nautical work song. It is this emphasis on hard manual labour, combined with a sailor\u2019s wicked word play, which gives these songs their enduring appeal. You can sense their influence behind Shakespeare\u2019s sea song in The Tempest<\/em>:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Full fathom five thy father lies;
\nOf his bones are coral made;
\nThose are pearls that were his eyes;
\nNothing of him that does fade,
\nBut doth suffer a sea-change
\nInto something rich and strange.
\nSea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
\nDing-dong,
\nHark! Now I hear them \u2013 Ding-dong, bell.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And you can hear them lurking in the sailors\u2019 song in Thomas Pynchon\u2019s Mason & Dixon<\/em> \u2013 \u2018Sumatra, where the girls all look like Cleopatra, and when you\u2019re done you\u2019ll simply barter\u2026\u2019 Sea shanties move with a swagger. They tempt purple prose and have given birth to long rambling movies from Moby Dick<\/em> to Pirates of the Caribbean<\/em>. They\u2019re proof that not all our genetic code is in the marrow \u2013 some of it is in songs like these.<\/p>\n

This selection is taken from the collection of Andrew Drask\u00f3y on his website Shanties and Sea Songs<\/a><\/em>. As he suggests these lyrics are best heard sung and three good albums provide a starting point:<\/p>\n