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<\/p>\n“Shanties” are songs that are sung while traveling at the sea for any purpose. It is a behavior that has been going on for six thousand years, dating back to Ancient Egypt, and its main function is to facilitate routine tasks. The audience is usually small, but these folk songs prove the following claim: The sea makes people sing.<\/p>\n
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Shanties are usually in a call and response format. From Napoleon’s wars to the beloved waiting at home, from the distance of the destination to the longed-for port, there are common themes that vary, and contrary to expectations, they have nothing to do with the romanticism evoked by the sea. The definition of a “shanty” is a melody used by sailors to help them time their movements while working. This is particularly evident in some folk songs and, regardless of the culture they belong to, contains a powerful fundamental appeal. The phonetic similarity between the most widely known Anglo-Saxon phrase, “Haul Away, Joe!”, and the Black Sea region’s “Hey ola mola hey” is likely due to the fact that the function has remained unchanged.<\/p>\n
The concerns of sailors are also an important category of these folk songs. The fact that the English folk songs that took shape in the 19th century and those that emerged in America have African-derived melodies also gives a good idea about the origin of these concerns. The tradition of singing African folk songs is not limited to the sea or boats, but is directly linked to rhythmic labor. The path from there to blues, rock ‘n’ roll, and jazz is already well known to everyone.<\/p>\n
Today, we listen to shanties in a form that is completely detached from their original context, usually through covers performed by professional musicians. However, in their original form, they are pieces that sometimes last for hours and whose lyrics constantly change depending on the performer’s improvisation. Of course, examples of this genre that could be considered contemporary, such as Stan Rogers’ composition “Barrett’s Privateers,” can also be found.<\/p>\n
One can also mention shanties, which are seen not just as a way to pass the time or have fun, but as a means of preserving and passing on tradition. After all, singing folk songs is a participatory activity and should not be seen as a solitary pursuit.<\/p>\n
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Some examples from the collection of shanties at the American Folklife Center demonstrate that the subject is worthy of in-depth study. It appears that sailors give different names to the songs they sing for entertainment outside of work. The collection includes many examples of established subgenres, including whaling songs. For example, when Asel Trueblood sang “Greenland Whale Fishery,” he said he learned the song in 1888. So the history of shanties goes back a long way. There are also simple hymns with very few words. One of the oldest literary sources of this tradition is Richard Henry Dana’s work Two Years Before the Mast, published in 1834.<\/p>\n
Learning that “Boney”, one of the most famous examples of folk songs, takes its name from Napoleon Bonaparte makes the meaning of its sarcastic lyrics clearer. One of the most beloved pieces, “Hanging Johnny,” uses wordplay to express the act of pulling a rope together. Ultimately, these folk songs are a heterogeneous group of songs with different origins. Some came to the sea from the land, some were born directly in the sea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3846,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3700","sirenas-whisper","type-sirenas-whisper","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sirenaselection.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sirenas-whisper\/3700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sirenaselection.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sirenas-whisper"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sirenaselection.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sirenas-whisper"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sirenaselection.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sirenas-whisper\/3700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4049,"href":"https:\/\/sirenaselection.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sirenas-whisper\/3700\/revisions\/4049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sirenaselection.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sirenaselection.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}