Bosun's Story, The

DESCRIPTION: Exaggerated story about a whaling voyage. The crew nails the ship to a whale's tail and thus sails to the North Pole and back. Each stanza ends with "'And that's the truth', said he."
AUTHOR: Words: Fred E. Weatherly / Music: J. L. Malloy
EARLIEST DATE: 1916 (Treasury of Favorite Songs)
KEYWORDS: shanty whale bragging talltale
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Harlow-ChantyingAboardAmericanShips, pp. 157-159, "The Bos'un's Story" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lane/Gosbee-SongsOfShipsAndSailors, p. 55, "The Sailor'sTale" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: John Piersol McCaskey, compiler, _Treasury of Favorite Songs_ (in three volumes), J. P. McCaskey, 1916 (available on Google Books), Volume III, p. 346, "The Boatswain's Story" (1 text, 1 tune)
The Trident Society/John W. Crosley, music editor, _The Book of Navy Songs_, Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1930 (available on Google Books), pp. 94-95, "The Bo's'n" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #9141
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Hurrah for Baffin's Bay" (humorous song about reaching the North Pole)
NOTES [84 words]: [Harlow-ChantyingAboardAmericanShips's version is] taken from a 1935 issue of Sea Breezes magazine, published in Liverpool, as given by Capt. A.G. Cole. - SL
Harlow isn't the only one to think this a traditional Walkaway (stamp and go) shanty, although I would think the verse form would give it away. The earliest copy I've found is from 1916 (the sheet music in the Library of Congress is undated), but I suspect it's from the very early 1900s, when the North Pole seemed like it might be unreachable (
Last updated in version 6.4
File: Harl157

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