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Tim Laycock 1980 / George Payne Rainsford James 1844

Laycock composed the tune and changed final line in chorus from "thou must not come tonight"

Clouds are upon the summer sky
There’s thunder in the wind
Pull on, pull on and homeward hie
Nor give one look behind

Chorus:
Row on, row on, another day
May shine with brighter light
Ply, ply the oars and pull away
There’s dawn beyond the night

Bear where thou goest the words of love
Say all that words can say
Changeless affection, strength to prove
But speed upon the way

Like yonder river would I glide
To where my heart would be
My barque should soon outsail the tide
That hurries to the sea

But yet a star shines constant still
Through yonder cloudy sky
And hope as bright my bosom fills
From faith that cannot die

Row on, row on, God speed the way
Thou canst not linger here
Storms hang about the closing day
Tomorrow may be clear 

trad 

Collected by Cecil Sharp from William 'Farmer' King in 1904.

Here the rosebuds in June and the violets are blowing,
The small birds they warble on every green bough.
Here’s the pink and the lily and the daffy-down-dilly
To adorn and perfume those sweet meadows in June.

Chorus:
If it weren’t for the plough, the fat ox would grow slow
And the lads and the bonny lasses to the sheep-shearing go.

Our shepherds rejoice in their fine heavy fleeces,
And frisky young lambs which their flocks do increase.
Each lad takes his lass all on the green grass
To adorn and perfume those sweet meadows in June.

Our clean milking pails, they are fouled with good ale;
At the table, there’s plenty of cheer to be found.
We’ll whistle and sing and we’ll dance in a ring
To adorn and perfume those sweet meadows in June.

Now sheep-shearing’s over and harvest do draw nigh,
We’ll prepare for the fields, our strength for to try.
We’ll reap and we’ll mow, we’ll plough and we’ll sow
To adorn and perfume those sweet meadows in June. 

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 

John Roberts & Tony Barrand 1983

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."

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
Trash as far as the eye can see
There’s trash for you, there’s trash 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

Windborne: 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
Rolling in my sweet baby’s arms

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 

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. 

trad 

From the 1850s when whaling vessels would hunt near Kamchatka in the summer and in the south Pacific in the winter. The fourth verse here is arguably bad to sing, but a more obviously genocidal verse is omitted both by Stan Rogers’ well-known version and here.

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. 

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 

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.

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 old 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) 

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.

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