Sea shanties and maritime music

"I've put in a good many hard years on shipboard," old Tom Shea told me, "and I've shipped with some queer lookin' crews, but let me tell ye that when the shanties was started everything got jolly and cheerful at once, and the men that never seen each other before acted like wot they was old friends. — And ye needn't think," he added, "that the shanties was all noise and yellin'. There was some fine singers in them old crews, and it was great to hear them at the shanties."

W. R. Mackenzie, Ballads and Sea Songs from Nova Scotia, 1928

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.

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