Gavin Atkin's weblog for the sort of people who like looking inside boat sheds. It's about old boats, traditional boats, boat building, restoration, the sea and the North Kent Coast
It’s about time for a song, I think – so here are two for good measure. The first, Maggie May, is often thought of as terribly bawdy, but really it’s just a warning song, like so many songs that were popular in the past.
The second is sometimes called The Smacksman and sometimes the Trawler Song. Either way, it’s a great chorus number that I have very much in mind if I get into ‘the good singing room’ at this year’s English Country Music Weekend at the historic Essex fishing port of Brightlingsea (do take a look at the programme – ‘country’ here generally means old fashioned English rural music, not something manufactured in Nashville) and for the Nordhorn canal festival being organised by regular contributor Hans-Christian Rieck and colleagues.
Hans-Christian Rieck
Hi Gavin, what about this chap and his accordion he bought or not bought in G…
A little song about the skipper of a Humber sloop made by Pete Thompson – I don’t know whether it’ll catch on, but having rowed back from the pub once or twice, I do know that this is an important topic!
The series of scans from Tait’s Seamanship I began a few days ago reminded me of the song Paddy West’s House, which describes a rather less salubrious ‘educational’ establishment that achieved celebrity status in the city of Liverpool a century and a half ago – not least because of the famously useless ‘sailors’ crimper West supplied to skippers waiting to leave the docks.
My recording made yesterday evening is linked above. The box, by the way, is my latest melodeon, an ancient two-row Koch melodeon that might have been made in the 1910s or ’20s. It has a nice soft tone that makes it very pleasant to sing with, and I think I’ll be using it from time to time.
I learned the song from a record as a teenager and over the last few days half-remembered that I had got it from an old Topic sampler of sea songs, on which it was sung by Stan Kelly – but looking at the online discographies, I must be mistaken – almost the only recordings of the song I can find on that label that I can find was by Ewan MacColl. I must take a look through my father’s vinyl recordings when I get a chance.
I should also add a small word of caution. I now realise there could not be such a sail as a ‘forward top mains’l, however salty it may sound – but the teenager that learned the song so many years ago didn’t know that, and I suspect the singer he got it from wasn’t aware either. So that’s another little job for me – get the lyrics technically right next time I sing it in public…
PS – Paul Mullings has pasted a nice alternative set of lyrics in the comments below. I hope this doesn’t mean he disapproves of mine!
Hans-Christian Rieck