Category: songs

trad 

 

Leadbelly: https://leadbelly1888.bandcamp.com/track/rock-island-line

https://leadbelly1888.bandcamp.com/track/rock-island-line

Chorus: The Rock Island Line is a mighty good road The Rock Island Line is the road to ride The Rock Island Line is a mighty good road If you want to ride you gotta ride it like you find it Get your ticket at the station for the Rock Island Line Well I may be right and I may be wrong I know you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone ABC double XYZ Cat’s in the cupboard but you don’t need me Pretty Emelina, sitting in the shade Thinking ’bout the money that I ain’t made

 

 

D. K. Gavan <1859  

Gaelic Storm: Rocky Road To Dublin/Kid On The Mountain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HK4Y1Ot9-w

In the merry month of May from my home I started Left the girls of Tuam nearly broken-hearted Saluted Father dear, kissed my darlin’ Mother Drank a pint of beer my grief and tears to smother Then off to reap the corn, and leave where I was born I cut a stout blackthorn to banish ghost and goblin, In a bran’new pair of brogues I rattled o’er the bogs And frightened all the dogs on the rocky road to Dublin, cho: One, two, three, four five, hunt the hare and turn her Down the rocky roaad, and all the ways to Dublin Whack fol-lol-de-ra. In Mullingar that night I rested limbs so weary, Started by daylight next morning light and airy, Took a drop of the pure, to keep my heart from sinking, That’s an frishman’s cure, whene’er he’s on for drinking, To see the lasses smile, laughing all the while, At my curious style, ‘twould set your heart a-bubbling, They ax’d if I was hired, the wages I required, Till I was almost tired of the rocky road to Dublin. In Dublin next arrived, I thought it such a pity, To be so soon deprived a view of that fine city, Then I took a stroll out among the quality, My bundle it was stole in a neat locality; Something crossed my mind, then I looked behind, No bundle could I find upon me stick a-wobblin’, Enquiring for the rogue, they said my Connaught brogue Wasn’t much in vogue on the rocky road to Dublin. From there I got away my spirits never failing, Landed on the quay as the ship was sailing, Captain at me roared, said that no room had he, When I jumped aboard, a cabin found for Paddy Down among the pigs, I played some funny rigs Danced some hearty jigs, the water round me bubblin’ When off to Holyhead I wished myself was dead, Or better far, instead, on the rocky road to Dublin. The bovs of Liverpool, when we safely landed, Called myself a fool, I could no longer stand it; Blood began to boil, temper I was losin’ Poor old Erin’s isle they began abusin’ “Hurrah my soul!” sez I, my shillelagh I let fly, Some Galway boys were by, saw I was a hobble in, Then with a loud Hurrah, they joined in the affray, We quickly cleared the way, for the rocky road to Dublin.

 

 

trad 

 

The Confederate sloop-of-war CSS Alabama was built by William and John Laird & Co. in Birkenhead, United Kingdom, in 1862. Alabama served as a commerce raider, attacking Union merchant and naval ships over the course of her two-year career, during which she never laid anchor in a Southern port. She was sunk on 19 June 1864 off the coast of Cherbourg by USS Kearsarge. The lyrics of the shanty Roll, Alabama, Roll are attributed to the Confederate sailor Frank Townsend who served on the ship. One of the crew of the Kearsarge who sank the Alabama is buried in the cemetery behind Armand Aromin & Ben Gagliardi’s house in East Providence.

Bellowhead: Bellowhead – Roll Alabama – Official Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fXHSRx3M5o

When the Alabama’s keel was laid Roll, Alabama, roll! It was laid in the yard of Jonathan Laird Oh, roll, Alabama, roll! It was laid in the yard of Jonathan Laird It was laid in the town of Birkenhead Across the Mersey river she sailed then And Liverpool fitted her with guns and men From the Western Isles she sailed forth To destroy all commerce of the North Down to Cherbourg came she straight one day For to take her toll in prize money There many a sailor lad met his doom When the ship Kearsarge hove in view And a shot from the forward pivot that day It shot the Alabama’s stern away In the three-mile limit, in sixty-four She sank to the bottom of the ocean floor

 

 

trad 

 

Someone on Mudcat wrote: “The song was in books of spirituals by the 1880s. First published sailor-related mention I have in my notes is 1903, in a review of one of Basil Lubbock’s books. The song turns up in the collecting work, amongst sailors, of Gordon and Carpenter in the 1920s. One of Carpenter’s men had “If the devil’s in the way we will roll it over him.” Spiritual lyrics. In Wood’s 1927 Oxford Song Book a Walter Raby, said it was ‘a windlass shanty popular about forty years ago [i.e. 1880s] in Lancashire vessels.'” It seems that the verses below are from Stan Hugill’s 1961 Shanties from the Seven Seas.

David Coffin: David Coffin – “Roll the Old Chariot” http://www.davidcoffin.com/index.php?page=music-and-cds

https://youtu.be/49FWp7WLYKw?si=2PzJKDy8UxScm4nI&t=25

We’d be all right if the wind was in our sails (3x) And we’ll all hang on behind Chorus So we’ll roll the old chariot along And we’ll roll the golden chariot along So we’ll roll the old chariot along And we’ll all hang on behind We’d be all right if we’d make it ’round the horn (3x) Oh, a night on the town wouldn’t do us any harm (3x) Oh, a drop of Nelson’s blood wouldn’t do us any harm, (3x) Oh, a plate of Irish stew wouldn’t do us any harm, (3x) If the devil’s in the way, well we’ll roll it over him, (3x)

 

 

Jack Forbes 1982

 

Written for a BBC radio ballad, Wind Over Tilbury, about the switch from the old labour-intensive London docks to mechanised container ports and the upheaval it caused. Additional verses by Becky Wright & Miriam Attia

I once was a rigger and I worked like Hell Rollin’ up, rollin’ down But now I’m a sailor with the OCL Rollin’ down the river. Chorus Rollin’ up, rollin’ down We’ll all get drunk in Tilbury town In twenty-four hours we’ll turn around and go Rollin’ down the river. The cargo comes in TEUs That’s a twenty-foot box, boys, full of booze. When first I saw a TEU I wondered where they put the crew. There’s a Tilbury girl called Kettle Jane First she’s on the boil then she’s off again. She’s got a friend called Teapot Anne And when she wants she’ll take a man But at the dockyard gate when it’s time to rest You can pick ’em up if they say yes

 

 

trad 

 

From the 1850s when whaling vessels would hunt near Kamchatka in the summer and in the south Pacific in the winter.

Stan Rogers: Rolling Down to Old Maui

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he82w8JCMdI

It’s a damn tough life full of toil and strife we whalemen undergo, We don’t give a damn when the gale is done how hard the winds did blow. We’re homeward bound, from the Arctic with a good ship taut and free, We don’t give a damn when we drink our rum with the girls of old Maui. Chorus: Rolling down to old Maui, my boys Rolling down to old Maui We’re homeward bound from the Arctic ground Rolling down to old Maui Once more we sail with a Northerly gale through the ice, and wind, and rain, Them coconut fronds and them tropical lands we soon shall see again. Six hellish months have passed away in the cold Kamchatka sea But now we’re bound from the Arctic ground rolling down to old Maui. Once more we sail with the Northerly gale towards our Island home, Our mainmast sprung, our whaling done and we ain’t got far to roam. Our stuns’l booms is carried away, what care we for that sound, A living gale is after us, thank God we’re homeward bound How soft the breeze from the island trees now the ice is far astern, Them island maids, them tropical glades is awaiting our return. Even now their big, black eyes look out hoping some fine day to see, Our baggy sails running ‘fore the gales rolling down to old Maui.

 

 

Charles Mackay 1858

 

Mackay’s original poem, written on board a ship, has “dear old England” in the chorus and the final four verses here, which are not as much sung as the top four. The first recording Mainly Norfolk lists is Bob Roberts in 1981 who says he learned it on a boat.

Call all hands to man the capstan, see the cable running clear Heave around and with the wheel boys, for our homeland we must steer Chorus Rolling home, rolling home, rolling home across the sea Rolling home to old New England, rolling home dear land to thee From the pines of California and by Chile’s endless strand We have sailed the world twice over, every boat and every land And to all you blagard pirates who would chase us from the waves Heed ye well that those who’ve tried us soon have found their watery graves We were boarded in Jamaica where the Jolly Roger flew But our swords were hardly drawn boys e’er they took a rosy hue We return with precious cargo and with bounty, coined and gold And our sweethearts will rejoice boys, for they love their sailors bold Up aloft amid the rigging, Swiftly blows the favoring gale, Strong as springtime in its blossom, Filling out each bending sail. And the waves we leave behind us, Seem to murmur as they rise, We have tarried here to bear you, To the land you dearly prize. Full ten thousand miles behind us, And a thousand miles before, Ancient ocean waves to waft us To the well-remembered shore. Newborn breezes swell to send us To our childhood’s welcome skies, To the glow of friendly faces And the glance of loving eyes.

 

 

 

 

Windborne: https://windborne.bandcamp.com/track/rollin-in-my-sweet-babys-arms

https://windborne.bandcamp.com/track/rollin-in-my-sweet-babys-arms

Chorus: Rollin’ in my sweet baby’s arms Rollin’ in my sweet baby’s arms Lay around the shack ’til the mail train comes back Rolling in my sweet baby’s arms I ain’t gonna work on the railroad no more I ain’t gonna work on the farm Gonna lay around the shack ’til the mail train comes back Rolling in my sweet baby’s arms Well they say that your parents don’t like me And they drove me away from your door If I had my life to live over I wouldn’t go there anymore Well my mother’s a gingerbread maker Sister can weave and spin Well, my daddy’s got an interest in that old cotton mill Watch that money flow in Sometimes there’s a change in the ocean Sometimes there’s a change in the sea Sometimes there’s a change in my own true love But there ain’t no never change in me

 

 

John Roberts 1983

Tony Barrand 

Golden Hind Music says: “We admit to responsibility for The Rolling Mills of New Jersey. Matt McGinn wrote The Rolling Hills of the Border. This is not that.”

Roberts & Barrand: The Rolling Mills of New Jersey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfTHyuDTNmE

Chorus When I die, bury me low Where I can hear the petroleum flow. A sweeter sound, I never did know The rolling mills of New Jersey. Down in Trenton, there is a bar The bums, they come from near and from far They come by truck, they come by car The lousy bums of New Jersey Down in Hoboken, there will be Garbage as far as the eye can see. There’s garbage for you, there’s garbage for me. The garbage dumps of New Jersey. When at last, I decided to roam, Far away from my home in Bayonne. I sat down, and wrote this poem. I wrote an ode to New Jersey.

 

 

Dillon Bustin 1986

 

Sandy Paton learned from Bustin at Pinewoods: “Re: tempo. When Dillon presented it at a workshop at Pinewoods, the first time we heard it, he sang it unaccompanied and “briskly.” Later that evening, in a most generous private session with us, he did it with what we call “lazy river” banjo accompaniment, and it was much more leisurely paced. We feel “leisurely” is the appropriate tempo, considering the text.”

Chorus I’m rolling, flowing, around these hills I must take a rest, but this river never will Rolling, flowing, to Cairo Town Just give me time to lay me down Boat’s up the river, she won’t come down I believe it in my soul, she is water-bound Back her, slack her, bring her round Give me time to lay me down Come, Rosianna, the boat is lying low On a sandy bar, out in the Ohio Roustabouts are pulling, pulling mighty slow To give me time to lay me down I work these steamboats. a dollar bill a day I buy a dress for Rosianne, drink the rest away Captain, he just told me to call lead line today Lord, I got no time to lay me down All of the rich folks out on the promenade Twirl their parasols, drink their lemonade I got hot steam to drink, I got smokestack for my shade And I got no time to lay me down I load all of this freight by bale and by sack I slowly cross the plank, I quickly walk it back A hundred eighty pounds a bale, a hundred ninety pounds a sack Two hundred pounds’d break your back