Sailor Boy's Carol, The

DESCRIPTION: The "sailor boy" "tells Of merry hours when pleasure dwells ... His song is heard amid the gale ... without a care ... List to his song"
AUTHOR: Thomas Power (source: Frank-JollySailorsBold)
EARLIEST DATE: 1840 (source: Frank-JollySailorsBold)
KEYWORDS: travel sea ship nonballad sailor youth
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Frank-JollySailorsBold 199, "The Sailor Boy's Carol" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: A.N. Johnson and Jason White, _The Young Minstrel_ (Boston: George P Reed, 1848 ("Digitized by Internet Archive")), pp. 76-77, "The Sailor Boy's Carol" ("There's joy upon the sparkling sea, sparkling sea") (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #31315
NOTES [165 words]: [The version in] The Young Minstrel has the chorus as, "List to the note, list to the song / Mark'd with gayest measure / Tho'ts of his home, thoughts of his friends, / Bring their truest pleasure. / La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la."
Frank comments: "Part of its failure to make the hit parade may be credited to the fact that the song is rather stagey, with a long, repititious refrin of la la la la las, and is accordingly difficult to sing effectively without the sort of part-harmonies and flashy string band or brass ensemble accompaniments in which 19th-century minstrel troupes specialized." (Frank-JollySailorsBold p. 406). - BS
And one suspects that not many sailors would agree with the sentiment anyway. Based on 1841 sheet music by Oliver Ditson (available on Google Books), this was sung by The Rainer Family, a group of Tyrolean performers (it was even arranged for alpine horn!). Not exactly the sort of performers you'd expect for a sea song! - RBW
Last updated in version 7.0
File: FJSB199

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