Goodbye Fare-ye-well - Shanties Family Traditional Sea Shanties

List of Goodbye Fare-ye-well – Shanties Family

Interesting Facts about the Goodbye Fare-ye-well – Shanties Family

Goodbye Fare-ye-well – Shanties Family was in the opinion of Stan Hugill, with “Rolling Home – Goodbye, Fare-ye-well”, the most popular homeward-bound shanty. This shanty was used for raising the anchor on the capstan or windlass (by windlass I mean anchor windlass when pulling the anchor happens in the way of raise-up levers on both sides of the device, by moving up and down, the mechanism spin anchor or line, and each move pull anchor about couple inches). Below image of old fashion windlass.

The other story was about the capstan used later on sailing ships, it was a vertical-axled rotating machine developed for use on sailing ships to multiply the pulling force of seamen when hauling ropes. The capstan was used for multiple pulling (heaving) jobs, but raising the capstan was the heaviest job so the tempo was the slowest used on capstans. Below image of the capstan working on its sailors.

Short story of the Goodbye Fare-ye-well

Stan Hugil knows four versions of this beautiful shanty which (he says) was common to seamen all over the globe. Here list of different common versions of this song:

a) Usual homeward-bound sentiments;

b) Verses taken from the old forebitter “Homeward Bound”;

c) The “Mikmaid”

d) Verses from “The Dreadnaught”.

My private collection of books

Shantyman library – you will see descriptions and recommendations of positions worth diving into, true sources of knowledge about sea shanties. To gain knowledge about sea shanties is the main ultimate purpose of this library, every book in this library is somehow related to sea shanties and before mast songs.

More involvement in Traditional Sea Shanties

You can find this record here or directly listen below. If you want to discuss the record or share your opinion you can do it in my Facebook forum here.