White Squall, The

DESCRIPTION: "The sea was bright and the bark rose well, And the breeze bore the tone of the vesper bell"; the ship is a good one, and is approaching land. All are thinking of home when a white squall blows up and overwhelms the ship
AUTHOR: Words: Barry Cornwall / Music: George Arthur Barker (source: Rice/Senelick)
EARLIEST DATE: 1851 (CatherineHayesSwanOfErinSongster); reportedly composed 1835
KEYWORDS: ship storm
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Lane/Gosbee-SongsOfShipsAndSailors, p. 194, "The White Squall" (1 text, 1 tune)
Huntington-TheGam-MoreSongsWhalemenSang, p. 120, "The White Squall" (1 text, 1 tune)
Frank-JollySailorsBold 190, "The White Squall" (1 text, 1 tune)
Dime-Song-Book #25, p. 61, "The White Squall" (1 text)
CatherineHayesSwanOfErinSongster, p. 52, "The White Squall" (1 text)
Jim-the-Carter-Lad-Songster, pp. 49-50, "The White Squall" (1 text)
Roud #13623
NOTES [88 words]: Not to be confused with the Stan Rogers song of the same name. This seems to have been widely published in broadside form, but very rarely encountered in actual oral tradition.
Charles Rice's diary (Tavern Singing in Early Victorian England: The Diaries of Charles Rice for 1840 and 1850, edited, with an introduction and notes by Laurence Senelick, The Society for Theatre Research, 1997, p. 12) reports a singer in a proto-music hall singing a song called "The White Squall" in 1840, but I can't prove it's actually this. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.2
File: HGam120

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