Songs and Chanteys

Sailors sang chanties or work songs during their labors. Half-sung, half-chanted in a call-response pattern, chanties included ample profanity. The leader improvised, commenting on recent events and insulting the officers. After working hours, sailors entertained themselves with ballads. Many were sad songs of separation from home and family, known generically as “the sailor’s lament.” Also popular were ballads of danger and adventure, sea battles, storms, and shipwrecks.

At least some seamen continued to enjoy music after they turned pirate. In the early 1600s, Captain Stephenson kidnapped a man because he was expert on some kind of pipe. On Bartholomew Roberts’ warship – much larger than most pirate vessels – “musicians” entertained or accompanied the men. Roberts’ articles allow “The Musicians to have Rest on the Sabbath Day, but the other six Days and Nights, none without special favour.” Whether they sang or played instruments is unknown.

Some sailors’ songs were written down from the late 17th century. Some individual mariners probably remained faithful to their favorite ballads after turning pirate. But others may have preferred foreign ditties learned during their travels or from captives.

Pirates may have celebrated each other’s exploits. However, the only surviving songs about pirates are ballads, composed by professional (although usually anonymous) authors. From the early 1600s, these ballads were sold to the London public, often in connection with hangings. Since their authors knew little about individual brigands, each ballad tells the same story. Pirates are bad men who slaughter their victims and spend their money “in drunkenness and letchery,” to quote “The Seaman’s Song” (1609). “Captain Kid’s Farewel [sic] To The Seas” (1701), the most successful ballad, remained popular in America for two centuries.

Bill Bones sings “Fifteen Men On A Dead Man’s Chest” at the Admiral Benbow Inn in Treasure Island. In The Pirates Of Penzance (1879), the Pirate King soars in “Oh, Better Far To Live And Die,” while the pirates in Peter Pan (1904) chant “Avast Belay.” The lyrics and music were invented for these works and are not based on sailor’s ballads. (Rogozinski, Songs, Pirate)

CHANTEY, shan' te, a traditional sailors’ song, particularly the cadenced work songs of English and American sailors. “Forecastle songs,” in contrast to chanteys (or shanties), were sung simply for entertainment and are often nautical variants of old English, Irish, and Scots ballads. Most English-language chanteys date from the sailing-vessel days of the 18th and early 19th centuries. In addition to “deep sea chanteys,” the United States has traditional chanteys and songs from riverboat and Great Lakes vessels.

Chanteys set the cadence of such tasks as pumping, hoisting anchor, and reefing sails, and were classified according to rhythm as “short drag” chanteys, “halliard” chanteys, and “windlass” or “capstan” chanteys. The verses were commonly sung solo by a “chantey man,” with the refrain sung by the crew. (Encyclopedia Americana, Chantey)