Bollochy Bill the Sailor

DESCRIPTION: A dialogue song in which Bill -- who "just got paid and wants to be laid" -- seeks to get the fair young maiden into bed.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1917 (Greig/Duncan8)
KEYWORDS: bawdy dialog sailor seduction
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber)) US Canada
REFERENCES (15 citations):
Greig/Duncan8 1759, "Blickerty Brown the Sailor" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Greenleaf/Mansfield-BalladsAndSeaSongsOfNewfoundland 49, "Abram Brown the Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cray-EroticMuse, pp. 81-86, "Bollochy Bill the Sailor" (3 texts, 1 tune)
Shay-AmericanSeaSongsAndChanteys, p. 204, "Rollicking Bill the Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune, probably truncated since it ends with Bill asking for a place to sleep and the girl declaring she has only one bed)
Shay-BarroomBallads/PiousFriendsDrunkenCompanions, p. 151, "Rollicking Bill the Sailor" (1 text, like the preceding, probably truncated)
Colcord-SongsOfAmericanSailormen, pp. 182-183, "Abram Brown" (1 text, 1 tune)
Harlow-ChantyingAboardAmericanShips, pp. 164-166, "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hugill-ShantiesFromTheSevenSeas, pp. 440-442, "Abel Brown the Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune) [AbrEd, pp. 331-333]
Hopkins-SongsFromTheFrontAndRear, p. 151, "Bollocky Bill the Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
Tawney-GreyFunnelLines-RoyalNavy, pp. 127-128, "Abraham the Sailor" (1 text)
Fuld-BookOfWorldFamousMusic, pp. 128-129, "Barnacle Bill the Sailor"
Morgan/Green-RugbySongs, p. 46, "Who's That Knocking At My Door?" (1 text)
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, pp. 104, 237, "Barnacle Bill"/"Banacle Bill the Sailor" (notes only)
DT, BARNBILL BARNBIL2
ADDITIONAL: Simon J. Bronner _"Who's That Knocking at my Door?": Barnacle Bill the Sailor and his Mates in Song and Story_ (Occasional Papers in Folklore Number Five), Loomis House Press, 2016, includes about a dozen texts, various fragments, tunes, and related pieces, plus history
Roud #4704
RECORDINGS:
Anonymous singers, "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" (on Unexp1)
Bix Beiderbecke w. Paul Whiteman's Orchestra, "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" (Victor 25371, 1936)
Bud & Joe Billings (Frank Luther & Carson Robison), "Barnacle Bill The Sailor" (Victor V-40043, 1929; Victor V-40153, 1929 [as Bud Billings & Carson Robison])
Ned Cobbin [pseud. for Irving Kaufman], "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" (Harmony 861-H/Diva 2861-G, 1929)
Billy Costello (Popeye), "Barnacle Bill, the Sailor" (Decca 1573, 1937)
Frank Luther & His Pards, "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" (CYL: Edison 5678, c. 1929) (Edison 52532, 1929)
Arthur Fields, "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" (Harmony 861-H/Velvet Tone 1861-V, Diva 2861-G, 1929)
Carson Robison, "Barnacle Bill, the Sailor" (Broadway 4054, c. 1932)
Pete Wiggins, "Barnacle Bill, the Sailor" (OKeh 45295, 1929)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Quaker's Wife" (tune, per Greig/Duncan8)
SAME TUNE:
Frank Luther & his Pards "Barnacle Bill the Sailor, No. 2" (Edison 20008, 1929)
Bud & Joe Billings (Frank Luther & Carson Robison), "Barnacle Bill The Sailor No. 2" (Victor V-40102, 1929)
Bud & Joe Billings (Frank Luther & Carson Robison), "Barnacle Bill the Sailor No. 2" (Victor V-40102, 1929); "Barnacle Bill The Sailor No. 3" (Victor V-40153, 1929)
Carson Robison, "Here I Go to Tokyo, Said Barnacle Bill, the Sailor" (Bluebird B-11460, 1942)
Vernon Dalhart, "Barnacle Bill the Sailor - No. 2" (Harmony 1304, 1931)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Barnacle Bill the Sailor
NOTES [244 words]: For a history of this onetime sea song, see Cray, Erotic Muse II, pp. 83-85. - EC
Most of the printed versions of this song are fairly "clean." But Cray and Fuld are in agreement that it is properly a bawdy song, and Hopkins-SongsFromTheFrontAndRear has a version that is very coarse indeed. Fuld doubts the existence of its ancestor "Abram Brown the Sailor," but Cray quotes a text from the Gordon collection, Bronner, p. 27, has an image of a broadside version, [and there is a version in Greenleaf/Mansfield-BalladsAndSeaSongsOfNewfoundland- (BS)].
There is also a nursery rhyme about Abram Brown, found in Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes, #6, and in Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #230, p. 150, ("Abram Brown is dead and gone"), but if that is associated with any song, it is probably "Old Grimes Is Dead."
Carson Robison is sometimes credited with a popular version of this ("Barnacle Bill the Sailor"), but obviously his part was no more than a clean-up (and production of sequels).
Brophy/Partridge-TommiesSongsAndSlang, p. 228, record a World War I verse (not a song, I believe) that ran
Help, help, there's a woman overboard!
Who will save her? I will!
Who are you?
Ballocky Bill the sailor, just returned from sea. - RBW
In the interest of history, it is worth recording that the scientists of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, during the Sojourner mission, named a particularly lumpy rock on the surface of Mars "Barnacle Bill the Sailor." - PJS
Last updated in version 6.3
File: EM081

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