Old Sailor's Song

DESCRIPTION: No tune given, basically a poem recounting the various travails of sailors. Nine stanzas; begins "Come listen unto me a while and I will tell you then, the hardships and the misery of life on a merchantman..."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1938 (Colcord); collected c. 1920
KEYWORDS: sailor work hardtimes
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Colcord-SongsOfAmericanSailormen, pp. 138-140, "Old Sailor's Song" (1 text)
Lane/Gosbee-SongsOfShipsAndSailors, pp. 196-197, "Old Sailor's Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST Colc138 (Partial)
Roud #4705
NOTES [141 words]: Colcord-SongsOfAmericanSailormen says this was secured from Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, co-author of Minstrelsy of Maine (though it is not in that collection), which would date it to around 1927. - SL
Curiously, the song does not appear in Jean Patten Whitten's description of the Eckstorm folk song collection (Fannie Hardy Eckstorn: A Descriptive Bibliography), at least not under this title or filed under Colcord-SongsOfAmericanSailormen's first line, but Lane/Gosbee-SongsOfShipsAndSailors confirms that Eckstorm collected it and gave it to Colcord.
The lyrics fit "Bold Jack Donahoe"/"Jim Jones at Botany Bay," and there are enough similarities that I think that may have been the tune intended. Lane/Gosbee-SongsOfShipsAndSailors, however, plump for "You Gentlemen of England" (without being clear on which song of that name they mean). - RBW
Last updated in version 6.4
File: Colc138

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography