I did not think much about sea shanties,
now articles about them are popping up every where, as are collections of the lyrics like this one, The Music of the Waters: A Collection of Sea Shanties, (1888)
by Laura Alexandrine Smith, the book also known as Working Songs of the Sea, of All Maritime
Nations. Boatmen's Fishermen's, and Rowing Songs, and Water Legends (London:
Kegan Paul, Trench and co, 1888), little is known about Laura Alexandrine
Smith, except that she lived in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, where her father
was Russian vice-consul, and that she was — as evidenced by this wonderful
collection of sea shanties and their surrounding culture — an exemplary
ethnomusicologist. As a writer, she was clearly interested in the
anthropological aspects of musical genres (her second
book looked at Gypsy music), and here in The Music of the Waters her
focus is on the song-bellowing sailor, whether a Nile boatman, Venetian
gondolier, Indian rower, or Dutch herring-fisher, in her immersive
research. “She has personally gone”, as R. M. Ballantyne (author of
copious maritime
adventure tales for children) says in his Introductory Note, “straight to
the 'fo'c'sle,' and interviewed the sailors not only of her own, but of other
lands, and thus has gathered from the men's own lips, and from their manly
voices, the words and melodies which are most popular among them.” below are other titles that are out there for any budding sea shantiers although none are so comprehensive or as international in reach as Smith's,
incidentally the film I wanted to watch, Fisherman's Friends is not out on Netflix yet, but as soon as it is I will watch it.
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