Nautical Yarn, A

DESCRIPTION: "I sing of a captain who's well known to fame" named Bill Jinks. He sails on the Murray River. One night, it is too dark to see, and the crew are all afraid, but the ship goes on. At last they are wrecked -- so the crew walks ashore
AUTHOR: Keighly Goodchild (source: Stewart/Keesing-FavoriteAustralianBallads)
EARLIEST DATE: 1883 (Goodchild's "Who Are You?: A Volume of Verse," according to Martin Graebe)
KEYWORDS: river ship wreck humorous
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Stewart/Keesing-FavoriteAustralianBallads, pp. 67-68, "A Nautical Yarn" (1 text)
Roud #9094
NOTES [169 words]: Sort of an Australian version of "The E-ri-e," although I do not suspect dependence. - RBW
Martin Graebe reports about this song, "Its origin is in a book of verse by Keighley Goodchild, a Londoner, then living in Echuca, a (very!) inland port on the Murray River in Australia. It was published in his book 'Who Are You?: A Volume of Verse', privately published in 1883. I have not, yet, seen a copy but it is said that the direction is that it should be sung to the tune of 'The Dreadnought', though Burl Ives used 'Villikins' for his 1952 recording.
"Goodchild's book was known in England and another of his poems,' When the Billy Boiled', was included in an anthology of Australian poetry published in London in 1888. It has been published in a few Australian collections, but the only example of it being recorded in England is Reg Hall's recording of Cyril Phillips singing it in Sussex in 1966. I have a newspaper report of it being performed in a village concert in Gloucestershire in January 1900." - (RBW)
Last updated in version 6.3
File: StKF067

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