Sea shanties and maritime music

I remembered that sailors still sing in chorus while they work, and even sing different songs according to what part of their work they are doing. And a little while afterwards, when my sea journey was over, the sight of men working in the English fields reminded me again that there are still songs for harvest and for many agricultural routines. And I suddenly wondered why if this were so it should be quite unknown, for any modern trade to have a ritual poetry... And at the end of my reflections I had really got no further than the sub-conscious feeling of my friend the bank-clerk—that there is something spiritually suffocating about our life; not about our laws merely, but about our life. Bank-clerks are without songs, not because they are poor, but because they are sad. Sailors are much poorer.

G. K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles, 1909

This Day in History (February 29, 1908)

This Day in History (January 8, 1806)

The death of Lord Nelson was a national tragedy like no other for England. "From Greenwich to Whitehall Stairs, on the 8th of January, 1806, in one of the greatest Aquatic Processions that ever was beheld on the River Thames" drifted the royal shallop (barge). The event is referenced in the modern lament, Carrying Nelson Home. Nelson is mentioned in nearly a dozen other songs.

Try a random shanty sampling

The Little Golden Ring
Forecastle song

Memory carries my fancy
Back to the days that are long past gone;
There stands a sailor dressed in garments of blue,
Biding a lone, weeping widow adieu
Vows of the future he laughingly makes,
While from her finger a keeper she takes,
And with words so tender, broken with tears
These were the words whispered into my ears

(Quicker)
"'Tis but a little golden ring she gave to me with pride;
Wear it for your mother's sake when you're on the tide.
If you are in trouble, comfort it will bring
To think of me while gazing on that little golden ring."

Now it's "God bless us," 'twixt Mother and me.
Good-by forever, perhaps it may be.
Then he turned and manfully strode,
Till hidden from view by a turn in the road.
When on the vessel the anchor is weighed,
Then for some strange destination they made,
But bright as a beacon my keeper doth gleam,
And the voice of my mother doth say in my dream:

Time brought promotion and honor to me.
Duty was done as duty should be.
Every mail brought me a letter from home,
Oft-times were opened in grief, I must own.
Slowly but surely those letters decreased,
Then all of a sudden they silently ceased.
But bright as a beacon my keeper doth gleam,
And the voice of my mother doth say in my dream:

Now then, old England's white cliffs are at hand;
Once more I see my own native land.
Strangers were there for to answer my call,
For Mother was sleeping her last sleep of all.
Gold or silver or jewels divine
Could not tempt me to part with that keeper of mine,
For bright as a beacon that keeper doth gleam,
And the voice of my mother doth say in my dream: