Baltimore (Up She Goes)

DESCRIPTION: Shanty. "He kissed her on the cheek and the crew began to roar, Oh, oh, up she goes, we're bound for Baltimore." Verses continue with kissing on the neck, arms, legs, and other parts which the printed sources politely refrain from mentioning.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1938 (Colcord-SongsOfAmericanSailormen)
KEYWORDS: shanty bawdy nonballad sailor
FOUND IN: Germany US Britain(England(Lond))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Colcord-SongsOfAmericanSailormen, p. 92, "Up She Goes" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hugill-ShantiesFromTheSevenSeas, p. 418, "Baltimore" (1 text, 1 tune) [AbEd, p. 319]
Roud #4690
RECORDINGS:
John Doughty, "Baltimore" (on Voice12)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "A-Roving" (theme)
cf. "Tickly My Toe" (theme)
NOTES [149 words]: Colcord-SongsOfAmericanSailormen takes her version from Baltser's Knurrhahn, a book compiled for the German merchant marines. Hugill-ShantiesFromTheSevenSeas says that he never heard this on any British ships, but that it was very popular on German ones, and suggests that supports his theory that German and Scandinavian seamen adapted British and American shore-songs and turned them into shanties. - SL
Stan Hugill, Shanties from the Seven Seas (2003), p. 319: "It was a shanty very popular in German sailing ships, usually sung at the capstan.... It was never heard in British ships, and it helps to strengthen my theory that German and Scandinavian seamen adapted British and American shore-songs and turned them into shanties long after the art of 'inventing' shanties had died out aboard British and American ships... Of course many of the final verses have had to be censored!" - BS
File: Hugi418

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography