DRUNKEN SAILOR, THE
Created on 08/09/2016Latest update on 06/10/2023
Artist: James 'Jas' Brown
Author: traditional
Label: Zonophone
Year: 1911
Probably older than the 1820s. Charles Dickens let a drunken cook recite part of the lyrics in Two Dinner Failures (1855) and Cecil Sharp, who heard the song in London and in Bristol, collected it in English Folk-Chanteys (1914), calling it obviously a bagpipe tune, used on board as a work song. One of the only shanties accepted to be sung by the Royal Navy.
Covers:
- 1923:
John Baltzell [for Edison]
- 1924:
Percy Grainger [incorporated the tune in his suite Scotch Strathspey And Reel; in 1908 he had heard the song by Chas Rosher, seaman at rest in Chelsea; his cylinder version survived in the Sound Archive of the British Library]
- 1925:
Kenneth Ellis & Chorus [for Parlophone]
- 1925:
- 1927:
John Goss & the Cathedral Male Voice Quartet [as What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor]
- 1929:
- 1933:
David Guion [folk arrangement as What To Do With A Drunken Sailor; he also wrote Ol' Paint and contributed to Home On The Range, Turkey In The Straw and The Arkansas Traveler]
- 1939:
Captain Richard Maitland [Lomax recording as What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor]
- 1941:
Richard Dyer-Bennet [idem]
- 1946:
Mordy Bauman [on Songs Of American Sailor Men]
- 1948:
- 1956:
- 1961:
- 1966:
Ferre Grignard [hit B, NL & Fr]
- 1978:
Pere Ubu [as Caligari's Mirror on Dub Housing]
- 1980:
Babe [hit NL]
- 2003:
- 2006:
David Thomas [as What Do We Do With A Drunken Sailor on Rogue's Gallery]
The chorus reminds Irish trad. ballad Oró Sé Do Bheatha 'Bhaile! (see there).
