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"...I soon got used to this singing, for the sailors never touched a rope without it. Sometimes, when no one happened to strike up, and the pulling, whatever it might be, did not seem to be getting forward very well, the mate would always say, 'Come men, can't any of you sing? Sing now and raise the dead.' And then some one of them would begin, and if every man's arms were as much relieved as mine by the song, and he could pull as much better as I did, with such a cheering accompaniment, I am sure the song was well worth the breath expended on it. It is a great thing in a sailor to know how to sing well, for he gets a great name by it from the officers, and a good deal of popularity among his shipmates. Some sea captains, before shipping a man, always ask him whether he can sing out at a rope."
Katherine & Christine Shipp - Sea Lion Woman
Two daughters of a share-cropper, keeping beat to skipping rope circa 1939. Brings back memories, no?
Joseph Spence - Sloop John B.
Had to choose between this and Johnny Cash's take from his album Songs of our Soil. It's typical of Cash that he put a sea song on his soil "theme" record (which lists the song as I Want To Go Home, written by Johnny Cash). Don't know what to say about Spence's mumble-singing except it's so far from the Beach Boys sound that it somehow fits the tune to a T.
Waterson-Carthy - Hog-Eye Man
A sizzling sea chantey ("shanty" is just a corrupted spelling). For far dirtier verses, and a good explanation of what hog-eye means, check out this page. Here's one lyric that only touches at the nastiness a Google search for hog-eye man turns up:
A pretty girl I chanced to meet,
I stepped right up and kissed her sweet,
And asked her for some hog-eye meat.
The Pogues - Sea Shanty
From which our mix takes its name:
To write his name upon a shithouse wall
But before I die I'll add my regal scrawl
To show the world I'm left with sweet fuck all
And when all of us bold shithouse poets do die
A monument grand they will raise to the sky
A monument made just to mark our great wit
A monument of solid shit now me boys
Lotte Lenya - Pirate Jenny
Lush, bloody fantasy. Lenya's is still the best version ever cut.
The Gothic Archies - Shipwrecked
Staying with theatrical and impotent, a nice one from one of the many side projects of Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields.
The Carter Family - Storms Are on the Ocean
A grim lullaby of fidelity.
Bob Dylan - Spanish Boots
A beautiful tune of infidelity.
Ian Thomas - House Carpenter
Per the last two tunes, this one has the true and the false, sinking together. A great version of the tune by the incredible Ian Thomas, who you should be embarassed not to have of, an error you can rectify by hearing more (and buying an album) here.
Dave Van Ronk - Mr. Noah
A children's tune for a drowning man.
Mississippi John Hurt - Let the Mermaids Flirt With Me
I recall a fight in about sixth grade about whether or not taking mermaid head would make a fellow gay. I don't think any of us were quite clear on what head was, though.
Tom Waits - The Ocean Don't Want Me
Nick Cave - Fire Down Below
Last mix with Nick Cave, we asked: "He is kidding, right? Incredibly, no." He would've made a good pirate, that Nick Cave.
Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbick - Ramblin' Sailor
A more traditional chanty (and it is chanty, not shanty, according to OED, a book long treasured by pirates and sailors.
Van Morrison - Into the Mystic
June Carter Cash - Storms are on the Ocean
Two generations later, still a great tune.
Bob Dylan - When the Ship Comes In
A good, violent dream of peace from a young Dylan.
Nina Simone - See Line Woman
Beach Boys—Sloop John B (a capella)