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The Shellback / Three Little Drummers

from An Ownerless Corner of Earth by Francy Devine

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about

(Ewan MacColl, Harmony Music; trad arr Healy)

lyrics

I am a bold seafaring man,
I come from everywhere,
Pick any point on the compass you choose,
You're bund to find me there
Born in a storm in the Roaring Forties,
Entered in the log,
Sent up aloft to the upper t'gans'ls
And christened in navy grog.

Oh, all that I own are the clothes on me back
And the tools of a sailor's trade:
Me fid and me palm, a few needles, a spike
A knife with a good keen blade.
I've a bunk in the fo'c'sle, a place on the bench
In the galley where I can feed:
An old hook to hang me old oilskins on -
What more could a shellback need?

I have crossed both Atlantics and doubled both Capes
More times than I can tell,
I have fought the high seas in a parish-rigged barque
And frozen off Cape Farewell,
I've cursed the calms in the doldrums
When you'd swear the wind was dead,
Lain to off the Horn in a westerly gale
That would blow the hair right off your head.

To the maggoty beef and the weevily bread
I've added me share of abuse
I've pounded hard biscuit to powder and mixed it
With bug-fat and jaggery juice
I have known the galley awash for a week
I've gone hungry early and late
Been served with pea soup you could stand on the poop deck
And scare off a blue-nose mate.

I have sailed on the square-masted Yankee ships
With skippers who knew the score,
I've sailed with the drinkers who can't navigate
A course past the bar-room door.
I've sailed with masters who were seamen and knew
How to treat a sailor well
But as for the others, the miserable buggers,
They’d make your life, a hell.

I do know all the boarding house keepers ashore,
From Cardiff to Callao
I've known all the crimps and the waterfront pimps
From Riga to Tokyo.
I have spent me advance with Rasmussen the Dane,
And I've lodged with the Paddy West,
I've known the old slop-chest take half me screw
And Big Nellie, she took the rest.

So fare well you to you square masted sailing ships
Farewell to the days of sail,
Farewell you Cape Horners and every tall ship
That ever defied a gale:
Farewell to you shellbacks who sailed the seas
Through a world of wind and sky:
Your seafaring's over, your voyaging's done
Oh, you mariners all, goodbye.

credits

from An Ownerless Corner of Earth, released February 27, 2020
Steve Byrne, guitar; Hugh Healy, concer na; Mark Dunlop, whistle

license

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Francy Devine Howth, Ireland

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