Sea shanty
A sea shanty, chantey, or chanty (/ˈʃæntiː/) is a genre of traditional folk song that was once commonly sung as a work song to accompany rhythmical labor aboard large merchant sailing vessels. The term shanty most accurately refers to a specific style of work song belonging to this historical repertoire. However, in recent, popular usage, the scope of its definition is sometimes expanded to admit a wider range of repertoire and characteristics, or to refer to a "maritime work song" in general.
For other uses, see Sea shanty (disambiguation).Sea shanty
From Latin cantare via French chanter,[1] the word shanty emerged in the mid-19th century in reference to an appreciably distinct genre of work song, developed especially on merchant vessels, that had come to prominence in the decades prior to the American Civil War.[2] Shanty songs functioned to synchronize and thereby optimize labor, in what had then become larger vessels having smaller crews and operating on stricter schedules.[3] The practice of singing shanties eventually became ubiquitous internationally and throughout the era of wind-driven packet and clipper ships.
Shanties had antecedents in the working chants of British and other national maritime traditions, such as those sung while manually loading vessels with cotton in ports of the southern United States. Shanty repertoire borrowed from the contemporary popular music enjoyed by sailors, including minstrel music, popular marches, and land-based folk songs, which were then adapted to suit musical forms matching the various labor tasks required to operate a sailing ship. Such tasks, which usually required a coordinated group effort in either a pulling or pushing action, included weighing anchor and setting sail.
The shanty genre was typified by flexible lyrical forms, which in practice provided for much improvisation and the ability to lengthen or shorten a song to match the circumstances. Its hallmark was call and response, performed between a soloist and the rest of the workers in chorus. The leader, called the shantyman, was appreciated for his piquant language, lyrical wit, and strong voice. Shanties were sung without instrumental accompaniment and, historically speaking, they were only sung in work-based rather than entertainment-oriented contexts. Although most prominent in English, shanties have been created in or translated into other European languages.
The switch to steam-powered ships and the use of machines for shipboard tasks by the end of the 19th century meant that shanties gradually ceased to serve a practical function. Their use as work songs became negligible in the first half of the 20th century. Information about shanties was preserved by veteran sailors and folklorist song-collectors, and their written and audio-recorded work provided resources that would later support a revival in singing shanties as a land-based leisure activity. Commercial musical recordings, popular literature, and other media, especially since the 1920s, have inspired interest in shanties among landlubbers. Contemporary performances of these songs range from the "traditional" style of maritime music to various modern music genres.
Word[edit]
Etymology[edit]
The origin of the word "shanty" is unknown, though several inconclusive theories have been put forth.[4] One of the earliest and most consistently offered derivations is from the French chanter, "to sing."[5]
The phenomenon of using songs or chants, in some form, to accompany sea labor preceded the emergence of the term "shanty" in the historical record of the mid-19th century. One of the earliest published uses of this term for such a song came in G. E. Clark's Seven Years of a Sailor's Life, 1867.[6] Narrating a voyage in a clipper ship from Bombay to New York City in the early 1860s, Clark wrote, "The anchor came to the bow with the chanty of 'Oh, Riley, Oh,' and 'Carry me Long,' and the tug walked us toward the wharf at Brooklyn."[7] While telling of another voyage out of Provincetown, Mass. in 1865, he wrote:
History and development[edit]
Emergence[edit]
Singing or chanting has been done to accompany labor on seagoing vessels among various cultural groups at various times and in various places. A reference to what seems to be a sailor's hauling chant in The Complaynt of Scotland (1549) is a popularly cited example. Liberal use of the word "shanty" by folklorists of the 20th century[24] expanded the term's conceptual scope to include "sea-related work songs" in general. However, the shanty genre is distinct among various global work song phenomena. Its formal characteristics, specific manner of use, and repertoire cohere to form a picture of a work song genre that emerged in the Atlantic merchant trade of the early 19th century. As original work songs, shanties flourished during a period of about fifty years.
Nature of the songs[edit]
Function[edit]
In the days when human muscles were the only power source available aboard ship, shanties served practical functions. The rhythm of the song served to synchronize the movements of the sailors or to pace the labor as they toiled at repetitive tasks. Singing helped to alleviate boredom and to lighten, perhaps, the psychological burden of hard work. Shanties may also be said to have served a social purpose, as to build camaraderie.
Form[edit]
All shanties had a chorus of some sort, in order to allow the crew to sing all together. Many shanties had a "call and response" format, with one voice (the shantyman) singing the solo lines and the rest of the sailors bellowing short refrains in response (compare military cadence calls).
The shantyman was a regular sailor who led the others in singing. He was usually self-appointed.[121] A sailor would not generally sign on as a shantyman per se, but took on the role in addition to their other tasks on the ship. Nevertheless, sailors reputed to be good shantymen were valued and respected.[29]
The following example, a verse of the shanty "Boney" (in reference to Napoleon), shows the call and response form and the interplay between the voices of the shantyman and the crew.
While the crews of merchant ships in which shanties were sung might have come from a wide variety of national and ethnic backgrounds and might have spoken various mother-tongues, the shanty genre was by and large an English-language phenomenon. However, non-English-language sailor work songs were also developed. They are generally of these types:
There are notable bodies of shanty repertoire in Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, French, Breton, and Welsh, and shanties have been translated into Polish and German. The terms for shanties in these languages do not always precisely correlate with English usage. In French, chant de marin or "sailor's song" is a broad category that includes both work and leisure songs. Swedish uses sjömansvisa, "sailor song," as a broad category, but tends to use the borrowed "shanty" to denote a work song. Similarly, Norwegian uses sjømannsvise as the broad category and the borrowed term sjanti (also spelled "shanty") or the native oppsang for work songs. The equivalents in German are Seemannslied and, again, shanty. Polish uses a word derived from English: szanta.
Substantial collections of non-English shanties include the following, which have been instrumental in forming the modern day sailor song repertoires of revival performers in their respective languages: