Liverpool Song, The

DESCRIPTION: "'Twas in the' cold month of December... I shipped in the clipper ship 'Defender....'" The singer complains of sailing along with a lot of foreigners who "didn't know a word of English But answered to the name o' 'Month's advance.'"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1932 (Bone-CapstanBars); he reports learning it in 1900
KEYWORDS: foreigner sailor ship hardtimes
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Bone-CapstanBars, pp. 140-144, "The Liverpool Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST BonCB140 (Partial)
Roud #653
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Paddy, Get Back" (form, lyrics)
NOTES [121 words]: Roud lumps this with "Paddy, Get Back," which clearly inspired it, but Bone-CapstanBars notes that a sailor used each shantey "for its own special purpose on deck and it was rarely heard within the fo'cas'le, for entertainment...."
"[T]he elder hands maintained that the rousing of a chanty 'when ther worn't no call' could not but offend some presiding deity. But there were fo'cas'le ditty that could be sung in lieu and they had, in words and tune, a close resemblance to the chanty proper."
On that basis, I split them, though this hardly seems to exist in its own right.
There was an American clipper named Defender, launched in Boston in 1855 and wrecked in the South Pacific in 1859; I doubt it is the same ship. - RBW
File: BonCB140

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