We'll Rant and We'll Roar

DESCRIPTION: Sailor Bob Pittman describes his skills as a sailor, then settles down to describing his wedding plans. Having settled on a suitable wife (after much soul-searching), he makes arrangements for wedded life and bids farewell to all the other girls
AUTHOR: Henry W. Le Messurier (1843-1931)
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1880 (first verifiable publication in Murphy 1912)
KEYWORDS: courting marriage sea
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar,Newf)
REFERENCES (10 citations):
Greenleaf/Mansfield-BalladsAndSeaSongsOfNewfoundland 132, "The Ryans and the Pittmans" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke/Johnston-FolkSongsOfCanada, pp. 42-43, "We'll Rant and We'll Roar (The Ryans and the Pittmans)" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke/MacMillan-PenguinBookOfCanadianFolkSongs 12, "The Ryans and the Pittmans" (1 text, 1 tune)
Blondahl-NewfoundlandersSing, p. 10, "We'll Rant and We'll Roar" (1 text, 1 tune)
Doyle-OldTimeSongsAndPoetryOfNewfoundland, "The Ryans and the Pittmans" (1 text, 1 tune): p. 53 in the 2nd edition; p. 51 in the 3rd; p. 39 in the 4th; p. 37 in the 5th
Mills-FavoriteSongsOfNewfoundland, pp. 16-17, "The Ryans and the Pittmans (We'll Rant and We'll Roar)" (1 text, 1 tune)
England-HistoricNewfoundlandAndLabrador, p. 62, "Ryans and the Pittmans" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, RANTROAR*
ADDITIONAL: James Murphy, editor, _Old Songs of Newfoundland_, James Murphy Publishing, 1912 (PDF available on the Memorial University of Newfoundland web site), p. 6, "The Ryans and the Pittmans" (1 text)
James Murphy, _Songs Their Fathers Sung: For Fishermen: Old Time Ditties_, James Murphy Publishing, 1923 (PDF available from the Memorial University of Newfoundland web site), p. 15, "The Ryans and the Pittmans" (1 text)
Roud #687
RECORDINGS:
Omar Blondahl, "We'll Rant and We'll Roar" (on NFOBlondahl05)
A. L. Lloyd, "Talcahuano Girls" (on Lloyd3, Lloyd9)
Clare O'Driscoll, "We'll Rant and We'll Roar (The Ryans and the Pittmans)" (on MUNFLA/Leach)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Spanish Ladies" (plot, tune, lyrics) and references there
SAME TUNE:
The Saguenay Song (File: Hopk038)
NOTES [343 words]: A Canadian rewrite of "Farewell and Adieu to you Spanish Ladies." The author's title is "The Ryans and the Pittmans," but tradition has paid little attention to that, though scholars often respect it. - RBW
Bruce Fisher's Songs of Newfoundland site points out that the song, in each version, tours a local circuit of ports and outports. - BS
It's interesting to observe that the outports involved -- Toslow, Bruley, Valen, St. Kyran's, Presque, etc. -- are in Placentia Bay. But the Pittman family is apparently most associated with New Perlican on Trinity Bay; Seary, p. 258, says that the Pittman Family "used to do logging" in the area of New Perlican, Heart's Content, Old Perlican, and Pitman's Pond, all on the east coast of Trinity Bay, and Evans, p. 87, says that Pittmans were shipbuilders in the New Perlican area. Furthermore, the name "Pittman" is obviously English (and the churches of east Trinity Bay are all Anglican or United Church, according to McManus/Wood, plate 8.4) while "Ryan" is Irish (and there were at least some Catholic churches in the Placentia Bay area). And Newfoundland politics was dominated by the conflict between English Protestants and Irish Catholics. This raises strange thoughts about Bob Pittman being kicked out of the family home -- although there is obviously no hint of it in the song.
According to DictNewLabrador, pp. 197-198, H. W. LeMessurier became a clerk while still a teenager, and went into business while in his early twenties. In 1885, while in his thirties, he was elected to the House of Assembly, but lost his bid for re-election in 1889. He spent a few years editing the Evening Herald, then joined the Customs Department, becoming Deputy Minister in 1898 and staying in the post for thirty years. This song is his most famous work, but he also wrote articles on history, and is said to have helped introduce curling to Newfoundland.
"Talcahuano Girls," although it has its own Roud number (#32688), is almost certainly A. L. Lloyd's patch-up of this song to make it a generic whaling song. - RBW
Bibliography

DictNewfLabrador: (Robert H. Cuff, managing editor), Dictionary of Newfoundland and Labrador Biography, Harry Cuff Publications, 1990
Evans: Calvin D. Evans, Master Shipbuilders of Newfoundland and Labrador, Volume One: Cape Spear to Boyd's Cove, Breakwater Books, 2013
McManus/Wood: Gary McManus and Clifford H. Wood, Atlas of Newfoundland and Labrador, Breakwater Books, 1991
Seary: E. A. Seary, Place Names of the Avalon Peninsula of the Island of Newfoundland, University of Toronto Press, 1971

Last updated in version 6.7
File: FJ042

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