Interesting Facts about the Blow Ye Winds (C)
Blow Ye Winds (C) is Joanna C. Colcord’s from the “Songs of American Sailormen” (1938), it is the whaling version, and the last line has been camouflaged. It was a common line in shanties, forebitters, and whaling songs:
Where the Old Man bought a whore-house out for half a barrel o’ flour.
Joanna C. Colcord obtained this song from an old logbook in the New Bedford Public Library.
Because music notation has a lot of differences, instead of Stan Hugill’s version “A”, I took the melody straight from Miss Colcord’s book.
This song will be reconstructed as a forebitter.
The source of this sea shanty
The music: “Shanties from the Seven Seas” by Stan Hugill (1st ed p 219).
The lyrics: “Shanties from the Seven Seas” by Stan Hugill (1st ed p 223, 224).
The Record of the Blow Ye Winds (C)
You also can find this record on my YouTube channel here or directly listen below. Additionally, if you want to share your opinion about the record or share your opinion you can do it in my Facebook forum here, or leave a comment at the bottom of this blog article.
The musical notation
The full lyrics
Blow Ye Winds (C)
‘Tis advertised in Boston, New York, and Buffalo,
Five hundred brave Americans a-whaling for to go.
– Singing blow, ye winds, in the morning,
– And blow, ye winds, high-O!
– Clear away yer running gear,
– And blow, ye winds, high-O!
* 2 *
They send you to New Bedford, that famous whaling port,
And give you to some land-sharks to board and fit you out.
* 3 *
They send you to a boarding house,there for a time to dwell;
The thieves they there are thicker than the other side of hell!
* 4 *
They tell you of the clipper ships a-going in and out,
And say you’ll take five hundred sperm, before you’re six months out.
* 5 *
It’s now we’re out to sea, my boys, the wind comes on to blow;
One half the watch is sick on deck, the other half below.
* 6 *
But as for the provisions, we don’t get half enough;
A little piece of stinking beef, and a blamed small bag of duff.
* 7 *
Now comes that damned old compass, it will grieve your heart full sore.
For theirs is two and thirty points, and we have forty four.
* 8 *
Next comes the running rigging, which you’re all supposed to know;
‘Tis “Lay aloft, you son of a gun, or overboard you go!”
* 9 *
The coopers’s at the vise bench, a-making iron poles,
And the mate’s upon the main hatch, a-cursing all our souls.
* 10 *
The Skipper’s on the quarterdeck, a-squinting at the sails,
When up aloft the lookout sights a school of whales.
* 11 *
“Now clear away the boats, my boys, And after him we’ll travel,
But if you get too near his fluke, he’ll kick you to the devil!”
* 12 *
Now we have got him turned up, we tow him alongside;
We over with our blubber hooks, and rob him of his hide.
* 13 *
Now the boat-steerer overside the tackle overhauls,
The Skipper’s in the main-chains, so loudly he does bawl!
* 14 *
Next comes the stowing down, my boys, ’twill take both night and day,
And you’ll all have fifty cents apiece on the hundred and ninetieth lay.
* 15 *
Now we are bound into Tonbas, that blasted whaling port,
And if you run away, my boys, you surely will get caught.
* 16 *
Now we are bound into Tuckoona, full more in their power,
Where the skippers can buy the Consul up for half a barrel of flour!
* 17 *
But now that our old ship is full and we don’t give a damn,
We’ll bend on all our stu’nsails and sail for Yankee land.
* 18 *
When we get home, our ship made fast, and we get through our sailing,
A winding glass around we’ll pass and damn this blubber whaling!
