Sea shanties

Haul Away Joe

https://www.kinglaoghaire.com/lyrics/723-haul-away-joe

Sea shanties may not be to the taste of everyone, but I have been in the Endeavour pub in Whitby during the Folk Week when there has been a shanty session, and the atmosphere is amazing. Hearing South Australia sung by an entire packed pub is something to behold.

They do some about GY too.

Just had a listen to that one(Bound for south Australia). have to admit with a bit of lyric tinkering to make it Town/Gy related, it would make an awesome club song from the terraces. Not hard for most to learn the heave away haul away bit....any takers?.

Sure they've been discussed before but:

Various versions of the Grimsby Fisherman (This the Sheringham Shantymen)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5iaY3OZXvI

The Grimsby lads (John Connolly)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXS6hI0JUAg

Three score and ten, still my favourite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUvwt6LYiSA

Quoted from Fishbone

Sure they've been discussed before but:

Various versions of the Grimsby Fisherman (This the Sheringham Shantymen)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5iaY3OZXvI

The Grimsby lads (John Connolly)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXS6hI0JUAg

Three score and ten, still my favourite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUvwt6LYiSA

I remember listening to an LP that my sister and brother-in-law had (probably early 70s vintage or earlier) by a Grimsby based band called the Broadside, and they sang a song called Fiddler's Green. Not a shanty, but stuck with me the last 35-40 years.

As an aside, I think a lot of Sheringham fishing families moved to GY. My paternal great grandmother was born in Sheringham around 1900. Her son was an inshore fisherman out of Grimsby.

Some of these are fantastic and would lend themselves really well to a couple of thousand people singing them, as well as giving us a bit more of an identity, especially when there are lyrics referring to the Town itself.  

Shanties, like any folk song or story, depend on being re-told and passed down.  We have so much debate at the moment about what British culture means, and should we be preserving this or that statue or renaming this or that street, that we sometimes forget about the parts of our culture we actively fail to preserve: Victorian Libraries, our industrial heritage buildings, our traditional architecture, local foods, knowledge of literature or music.  Maybe reviving these songs could be a source of local pride as the town looks forward to a bit of a comeback, both the football club once the rescue deal is completed, and the town with new industries and regeneration?

I say let's go with "Sailing over the Dogger Bank" and "Three Score and Ten"; the former as something to sing before and during games and easily learned, and the latter as a sort of emotive, scarf-holding anthem much in the way of YNWA or Hibernian's Sunshine on Leith.

Perhaps a local band or musicians could re-work these songs in a rock-folk style like the Pogues or Dropkick Murphys that could be played before games with lyrics on the screen?  Would take time for people to learn, but could become a great part of the club.

Three Score and ten has a very interesting background.

Provenance
Three-score-and-ten, sung by Jim Potter and his appropriately named group 'Three Score and Ten' Jim preceded his performance with the following introduction:-

'Hull Times, 2nd of March, 1889. As day after day passes and no tidings arrive of the missing Grimsby smacks, it is beginning to be realized that the gale of the 9th will prove one of the most disastrous to the Grimsby fishing trade on record. All together nearly a dozen fishing vessels carrying between 60 and 70 hands are missing. Most of these vessels were only provisioned for 8 or 9 days and many of them have been out now for over a month. Of the safety of 7 of them all hope has now been abandoned. Portions of the wreck from the 'Kitten' have now been picked up at sea and brought into port, and the 'British Workman' was seen to be reduced to a mere wreck by a heavy sea on the morning of the gale. Many of the men who have been lost leave wives and families and an immense amount of distress will be caused among the fishing population. The total number of vessels lost will, it is feared, be near 15 and between 70 and 80 lives of men and boys.

The vessels lost were:-

The Sea Searcher, trawl smack, 5 hands
The John Witterington, 11 hands
The Eton, iron steam trawl smack, 8 hands
The British workman, cod smack, 7 hands
The Sir Frederick Roberts, trawl smack, 5 hands
The Kitten, trawl smack, 5 hands
The Harold, trawl smack, 5 hands.
Though this disaster song was composed in Grimsby it belongs rightly to the whole of the fishermen of the east coast, and we have the Filey Fishermen's Choir to thank for the preserving of this splendid oral version. The event it is based upon occurred as late as 1889 and William Delf, its author, had his song printed on a broadside no doubt to raise money for the relief of the bereaved families.

We have to thank Grimbarian song-writer and librarian John Conolly for unearthing the original broadside, which since has been much copied. The song has become very popular in the current folk revival having been recorded by Yorkshire's singing family, The Watersons.

Nigel Hudleston has suggested that the tune is based on Jingle Bells which was composed in America as a minstrel song in 1867. The Hudleston version as sung by Jack Pearson and The Filey Fishermen's Choir can be found in Songs of the Ridings, Pindar, 2001, p45, along with a copy of the original broadside. The recording was released on an EP produced by Excel Services in the 1960s.

great info Tinymariner! Thanks