COMMENT
WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A DRUNKEN SAILOR? IT’S TIME TO REIMAGINE SOME MARITIME TRADITIONS
Attending a recent festival I stumbled upon one of the most enthusiastic feel-good crowds I’ve ever been part of. Before I knew it I was roped in. An hour of foot stomping, dancing and singing to the Old Time Sailors sea shanty band was the perfect, albeit very surprising, start to the weekend.
Up until then, I’d never been a huge fan of sea shanties. They felt a bit too ‘pirate’ for me. All those ‘Aarrghs!’ and drunken sailors references, ‘Shave his bellies with a rusty razor’. Isn’t it a bit cliché? The shanty tradition has always felt like very male territory. Yes, I’m a woman and as much a sailor as anyone. But a song lamenting the day one has to go to sea because, ‘me money was all gone on liquors and the whores’ isn’t something I’ve found it easy to get behind. Dig into the history a bit, and you will quickly find that many shanties, while sung and adapted by sailors, have black Afro-American or west Indian sources and are essentially derived from slave songs. I’ve never been sure if I’m okay with celebrating that part of history.
I realise you may be rolling your eyes right now. But bear with me. Despite all my misgivings, that night at the festival reminded me that you can’t deny the magic of a crowd singing a great song with a solid beat that you can’t help but tap your foot to. And that, of course, is what shanties were designed for. They were sung by sailors aboard merchant vessels, to coordinate moves while hauling and heaving. But their benefits far exceeded a boost to efficiency. They were also a great morale boost for the crew, providing a source of entertainment on long passages. Shanties have had something of a revival in rencet years, thanks in part to a talented Scottish postman/musician’s take on ‘Soon May the Wellerman Come’ going viral.
Going to sea hasn’t actually changed much over the centuries. We still face many of the same challenges sailors did back in the 1800s. Like them, we need to distract ourselves when we feel afraid. Crews are still made up of disparate groups of people who somehow need to figure out how to work together on watch. We still yearn for a sense of lightness in the weight of an approaching storm. Repetitive tasks and their associated boredom are still a part of sailing, and we need ways to get through them just as much as the sailors of old did.
Music remains a great tool to get through these tough times. A memory of one of my early transatlantics comes to mind. It was the sixth
