Our Captain Calls All Hands (Fighting for Strangers)

DESCRIPTION: "Our Captain called all hands and away tomorrow, Leaving those girls behind." She says "What makes you go abroad fighting for strangers?" Stay here "free from all danger." He leaves. In grief "she fell like one a-dying."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1794 (Journal of the Polly)
KEYWORDS: grief love request rejection war parting death family lover separation
FOUND IN: Britain(England(Lond,South)) Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Butterworth/Dawney-PloughboysGlory, p. 34, "Our Captain Calls" (1 text, 1 tune)
Peacock, pp. 416-417, "All Hands Away Tomorrow" (1 text, 1 tune)
Reeves/Sharp-TheIdiomOfThePeople 71, "Our Captain Cried All Hands" (2 texts)
Williams-Wiltshire-WSRO Wt 440, "Disconsolate Lover" (1 text)
Palmer-FolkSongsCollectedBy-Ralph-VaughanWilliams #25, "Fountains Flowing" (1 text, 1 tune)
Purslow-TheConstantLovers, "Our Captain Cried 'All Hands'" (1 text, 1 tune)
Huntington-SongsTheWhalemenSang, pp. 99-100, "The Captain Calls All Hands" (1 text, 1 tune)
Huntington-TheGam-MoreSongsWhalemenSang, pp. 162-163, "A Song Concerning Love (The Captain Calls All Hands)" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #602
RECORDINGS:
Mrs Freeman Bennett, "All Hands Away Tomorrow" (on PeacockCDROM) [one verse only]
Pop Maynard, "Our Captain Calls All Hands" (on Voice01)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 11(636), "The Distressed Maid" ("Our captain calls all hands away to morrow"), J. Pitts (London), 1819-1844; also 2806 c.18(93)[a few illegible lines], Firth c.12(210), Harding B 25(525), "The Distressed Maid"; Firth c.12(208)[illegible lines], "The Distress'd Maid"
NOTES [125 words]: This is not "The Bold Privateer." [I agree, and so does Roud, though Huntington implies that they are the same. - RBW]
Vaughan Williams used the tune to set the words of John Bunyan's hymn starting "He who would valiant be 'gainst all disaster" (see Southern Life(UK) Sussex villages site for Monk's Gate)
Reeves/Sharp-TheIdiomOfThePeople: "... Lucy Broadwood gave as its original a broadside entitled 'The Welcome Sailor.'" The only broadsides of that title I have found so far belong with "A Seaman and His Love (The Welcome Sailor)" [Laws N29]. - BS
The title "Fighting for Stranger" is not, to my knowledge, found in tradition, but since that is the title Steeleye Span used, in what is probably the best-known recording, I've listed it here. - RBW
Last updated in version 4.2
File: Pea416

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