Paddy Get Back – Dick Maitland
“Paddy Get Back – Dick Maitland” version, known also under the title “Mainsail Haul”. This song was both capstan shanty and forebitter. According to Stan Hugill, the “Paddy Get Back – Dick Maitland” version was very popular, especially in Liverpool ships. Stan Hugill tells us also that this song has two forms, the eight-line verse (forebitter form), and the four-line verse (shanty pattern). We do have here the last variation of this song gives us a capstan shanty from “Shantymen And Shantyboys” by William Main Doerflinger (1951). So, Dick Maitland was the singer who sang this great song to Doerflinger. His performances are very authentic because he was a regular American shantyman, late of Sailors, Snug Harbour.
The following song will be reconstructed as a Capstan shanty.
The source of this sea shanty
The music: “Shanties from the Seven Seas” by Stan Hugill (1st ed: p 326).
The lyrics: “Shanties from the Seven Seas” by Stan Hugill (1st ed: p 326, 327).
Paddy Get Back – Dick Maitland
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The musical notation
The full lyrics
Paddy Get Back – Dick Maitland
I was broke and out of a job in the city of London,
I went down the Shad wall Docks to get a ship,
– Paddy get back,
– take in the slack,
– Heave away your capstan, heave a pawl, heave a pawl!
– ‘Bount ship and stations, there, be handy
– Rise tacks ‘n’ sheets ‘n’ mains’l haul!
* 2 *
There was a Yankee ship a-laying in the basin;
Shipping master told me she was going to New York!
* 3 *
If ever I get my hands on that shipping master,
I will murder him if it’s the last thing that I do!
* 4 *
When the pilot left the ship the catain told us,
We were bound around Cape Horn to Callao!
* 5 *
And he said that she was hot and still a-heating,
And the best thing we could do was watch our step.
* 6 *
Now the mate and second mate belonged to Boston,
And the captain belonged in Bangor down in Maine.
* 7 *
Tree of them were rough an’ tumble fighters,
When not fighting among themselves they fought with us.
* 8 *
Oh, they called us out one night to reef the tops’ls,
There was belayin’-pins a-flyin’ round the deck.
* 9 *
We came on deck and went to set the tops’ls,
Not a man among the bunch could sing a song.
* 10 *
Oh, the mate he grabbed a-hold of me by the collar,
‘If you don’t sing a song I’ll break your blasted neck!’
* 11 *
I got up and gave them a verse of Reuben Ranzo,
Oh, the answer that I got would make you sick.
* 12 *
It was three long months before we got to Callao,
And the ship she was a-called a floating hell.
* 13 *
We filled up there at Callao with saltpetre,
And then back again around Cape Horn!