Can't You Dance the Polka (New York Girls)

DESCRIPTION: The sailor meets a girl, who offers to take him home to her "family." He sits down to dinner, is drugged, and goes to bed with the girl. In the morning he awakens to find himself naked and without his money. He is forced to go to a boarding master
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1882
KEYWORDS: sailor whore robbery drink drugs shanghaiing
FOUND IN: US(MA)
REFERENCES (11 citations):
Doerflinger-SongsOfTheSailorAndLumberman, pp. 58-60, "Can't They Dance the Polka!" (1 text, 1 tune)
Colcord-SongsOfAmericanSailormen, pp. 108-109, "Can't You Dance the Polka?" (1 text, 1 tune)
Harlow-ChantyingAboardAmericanShips, pp. 37-38, "Can't You Dance the Polka?" "Santy" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Hugill-ShantiesFromTheSevenSeas, pp. 369-376, "Away Susanna!" "Can't Ye Dance the Polka?" "The New York Girls" (4 texts, 4 tunes -- also includes a fragment from the Swedish shanty book _Sang under Segal_ titled "Seafarers", the words being the same as Hugill's first version of "Can't You Dance the Polka")
Hugill-SongsOfTheSea, p. 71, "Can't You Dance the Polka?" (1 text, 1 tune)
Kinsey-SongsOfTheSea, pp. 52-53, "Can't You Dance the Polka?" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fireside-Book-of-Folk-Songs, p. 160, "Can't You Dance the Polka?" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 87, "Can't You Dance the Polka" (1 text, which appears truncated, with an ending in which the girl puts off the man by saying she has a husband)
Brand-BawdySeaSong 4, "Can' Ya Dance the Polka" (1 text)
DT, NYGIRLS* (NYGIRLS2? -- this looks like a modern parody; compare Silber's version)
ADDITIONAL: Captain John Robinson, "Songs of the Chantey Man," a series published July-August 1917 in the periodical _The Bellman_ (Minneapolis, MN, 1906-1919). Robinson called his version (in Part 1, 7/14/1917) "Oh My Santi"; the verse has with words very similar to "My Irish Jaunting Car" though the meter, tune, and chorus are from this song.
Roud #486
RECORDINGS:
Bob Roberts w. Peter Kennedy, "Can't You Dance the Polka?" (on LastDays)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Gold Watch" [Laws K41] (plot) and references there
SAME TUNE:
Chu Yen (RECORDING, Saul Broudy, Tom Price, Robin Thomas, on InCountry)
NOTES [34 words]: The Martin Churchill mentioned in the last verse of some versions was a boarding master of the mid-Nineteenth century. (For background on boarding masters, see the notes to "Dixie Brown" [Laws D7]). - RBW
Last updated in version 6.1
File: Doe058

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