Stormalong

DESCRIPTION: Shanty. Characteristic lines: "To me way, old Stormalong!... Aye, aye, aye, Captain Stormalong." About the death of Stormalong, who was elaborately buried off Cape Horn. The singer wishes he were Stormy's son so he could treat the sailors better
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1882 (but see NOTES)
KEYWORDS: shanty sailor death burial
FOUND IN: US(MA) Britain(England(West))
REFERENCES (15 citations):
Doerflinger-SongsOfTheSailorAndLumberman, pp. 82-83, "Stormalong" (1 text, 1 tune)
Bone-CapstanBars, pp. 126-127, "Stormalong" (1 text, 1 tune)
Colcord-SongsOfAmericanSailormen, pp. 88-89, "Stormalong" (1 text, 1 tune)
Harlow-ChantyingAboardAmericanShips, pp. 78-84, "Storm Along John," "Stormy," "Old Stormy" (6 texts, 6 tunes)
Hugill-ShantiesFromTheSevenSeas, pp. 71-77, "Mister Stormalong," "Stormy Along, John," "Way Stormalong John," Stormalong, Lads, Stormy," Way Stormalong John" (4 texts, 3 tunes) [AbEd, pp. 66-69]
Sharp-EnglishFolkChanteys, XX, XXXIV, & LVII, p. 23, 39 & 62, "Stormalong John," "Old Stormey," "Wo, Stormalong" (5 texts, 4 tunes)
Terry-TheShantyBook-Part1, #10, "Stormalong John" (1 text, 1 tune)
Shay-AmericanSeaSongsAndChanteys, pp. 63-65, "Stormalong" (1 text, 1 tune)
Kinsey-SongsOfTheSea, p. 102, "Stormalong" (1 text, 1 tune)
Gundry-CanowKernow-SongsDancesFromCornwall, p. 40, "Mister Stormalong" (1 text, 1 tune)
Botkin-TreasuryOfAmericanFolklore, p. 834, "Stormalong" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, STRMALNG*
ADDITIONAL: Captain John Robinson, "Songs of the Chantey Man," a series published July-August 1917 in the periodical _The Bellman_ (Minneapolis, MN, 1906-1919). "Old Stormy!" is in Part 4, 8/4/1917.
Frederick Pease Harlow, _The Making of a Sailor, or Sea Life Aboard a Yankee Square-Rigger_, 1928; republished by Dover, 1988, p. 276, "Storm Along John" (1 text, 1 tune)
Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928; notes to #398, ("Stormey's dead, that good old man") (1 text)
Roud #216
RECORDINGS:
Bob Roberts, "Mister Stormalong" (on LastDays)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The 'Cholly' Blues" (floating verses)
cf. "Deep Blue Sea (II)" (floating verses)
cf. "Carry Him To the Burying Ground (General Taylor, Walk Him Along Johnny)" (lyrics)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Captain Stormalong
Come-along, Git-along, Stormalong John
Oh, Stormalong
Old Stormalong
Mister Stormalong John
NOTES [208 words]: Although 1882 is the earliest firm date I have for this, the article "On Shanties," in E(neas) S(weetland) Dallas, editor, Once a Week, New Series, Number 31, August 1, 1868 (published by Bradbury and Evans and available on Google Books), p. 92, says "what can be more sad or touching than the air of Storm Along," strongly implying the song is older.
Shay reports, "Old Stormalong is the only heroic character in the folklore of the sea: he was born, like the great clipper ships, in the imaginations of men."
Shay adds a tall tale of Stormy aboard the clipper Courser, so large that it just barely fit through the English Channel. Stormalong had the ship greased with soap so it could slide through more easily. This is why the sea near Dover is foamy: The cliffs scraped off all the soap.
Slightly less fanciful is the account in Grant Uden and Richard Cooper, A Dictionary of British Ships and Seamen, 1980 (I use the 1981 St. Martin's Press edition), in the entry "'Old White Hat': nickame for John Willis, the Scottish seaman and shipowner for whom the Cutty Sark was built. The name derived from his habit of wearing a white top-hat. His father, another John Willias, was the original 'Old Stormy' of the sea chanty Stormalong." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: Doe082

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