FAWM.ORG | Forum Thread: Sea Shanty Challenge

@tiller2 7 weeks

What could be more opposite to today's anxious world than a sea shanty! Sea shanties seem to have broken out on Tiktok and Youtube, notably versions of Wellerman, maybe others.

Join me in adding some new songs to the genre. Straightforward work songs, or ironical or satirical takes are all fair game. When you post your song tag it #seashantychallenge

And please post links to some outstanding shanties to give us inspiration and examples of form. Hey ho, off we go!

@jeustan 7 weeks

This reminds me of the shanty cover of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald I made last October. Enjoy - https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/GS9hTRdUvHy47vS69

@yam655 7 weeks

Here's a possibly useful reference: https://theseashanty.net/The_Sea_Shanty_Shanty_Songs.html

@yam655 7 weeks

Hmm... I know what my youngest wants. He really wants a sea shanty about a gay pirate "stealing property" by freeing slaves.

Both of my kids would definitely enjoy some sea shanties about nameless terrors causing sailors to give up the life of fishing...

I wonder if I can make it happen this year.

@rshakesp 7 weeks

I wrote one a while ago https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qSBp0hedZ_UzAfReAxgAlRvCrFXz6BsW/v...

@guatecoop 7 weeks

I think I’m in on this one....I do have two accordions, but I think I’m going to spare everyone (and my poor dog who howls when I play them) with my lack of experience with those. However, I do have a melodica that I’ve never used and a Farfisa pianorgan that can do all of the accordion sounds without doing the bellows. This sounds like a plan.

@elainedimasi 7 weeks

I heard the most amazing "Have a Jolly Roger Christmas - Arrrrhh!" performance as part of a holiday benefit for a music venue. Wish it were on youtube so I could share, but I don't think he circulated his cut beyond the one-shot charity performance.

I had a sea shanty phase! I was in a folk band playing a medieval wedding, and we were accosted by pirate re-enactors.

Maybe I should rephrase that. It was more like the pirate guy was trying to pick up the band, not that the pirates were taking over the wedding! In the end, we joined the pirate troupe for a summer and accompanied their swordfights and stuff with various celtic tunes.

I'll have to check and see if the shanty book they gave me, made the move from NY to CA!

@candle 7 weeks

A great FAWMer (whom I miss dearly - hoping he might show this year), @captainvulpine is a master of Sea Shanties. Here are my favs of his:

A Hard Tack Life
https://captainvulpine.bandcamp.com/track/its-a-hard-tack-life

Bow To The Boatswain
https://captainvulpine.bandcamp.com/track/bow-to-the-boatswain

The last one is perhaps one of my favourite Vulpine songs.

See You In The Shadows…

@coolparadiso 7 weeks

Yup i will do one for sure!

@sjbatavia 7 weeks

Sounds like an interesting challenge that would push my lyrical skills quite a bit. I’m in!

@scubed 7 weeks

Sounds like fun! I’m in.

@aesthetic72 7 weeks

Newfoundland is made of three things: rock, salt, and song. Too many sea shanties to mention. Here's an iconic local one. A classic shanty has a chorus that is a call to coordinated work, sung in a rhythm that helps time hauling or hoisting things on ships and land. Here it's the bit that begins "Lay hold William..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYimjfvUjok

@donna 6 weeks

I may give it a go at some point as well. 😀

@markg 6 weeks

I'll be sure to try a sea shanty, just as soon as I complete my klezmer album--NOT! But you guys knock yourselves out.

@katpiercemusic 6 weeks

I’ve written several nautical and River related murder ballads and ghost songs which I’m hoping to put on my next cd. Probably the only time in my life when I will be musically on trend.

@robynmackenzie 6 weeks

I wrote a sea shanty for an assignment in college once and it was received with mixed reviews. Maybe it's time to give it another shot.

@radioovermoscow 6 weeks

My Sea Shanty Challenge will be to go through all of February without hearing a Sea Shanty (sorry, someone has to be the grump!)

@lazykat 6 weeks

I typically write a sea shanty every fawm...so count me in 😀

@sbs2018 6 weeks

Funny - I just read about these in The NY Times and was wondering if this would be a thing for this year’s FAWM. Must check this out once everybody is awake - lol!

@krayzie003 6 weeks

Yo ho ho! I'll bring the rum. Let's all be pirates!

@regis 5 weeks

As a fan of trying new genres and a recovering accordionist, I fully expect to give this a try. Shouldn’t be too hard to draw upon my experiences as a lifelong Wyomingite to conjur up tales of the sea...

@tseaver 5 weeks

@radioovermoscow Good luck: I'll bet somebody sneaks one by you. 😀

@elainedimasi 5 weeks

@radioovermoscow @tseaver New made up genre #AntiShanty, per the specs here: https://fawm.org/forums/topic/11055/

@leka 5 weeks

I’ll try!

@tootoobee 4 weeks

Just found a video of Adam Neely analyzing sea shanties https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1ovAB4vKzw

@davidbreslin101 4 weeks

I'm well up for this. [fluffs up beard, rolls up sleeves of big wooly jumper] I've only ever written one shanty. This needs fixing.

"The Bonny Ship the Diamond" is a standard at the Black Swan Folk Club in York. This version's very good, but I still prefer it with forty people roaring along in a vague approximation of harmony.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wWDnXUAPWI

@ineloquentsd 4 weeks

I’m absolutely going to try my hand at a shanty for this. One of my metamours is super into the birate trend, & I want to pay her tribute with something catchy & queer.

@karlsburg25 4 weeks

@tiller2 oooo i am so on for this. My uncle Nigel is in a sea shanty band called |"stamp and go" down in Cornwall and i bloody love them. he writes his own shanties as well and literally two days ago i was listening and thought. Ooooo i'll give writing one of them a go. May need some lyrics mind 😉

@hakk 4 weeks

This sounds like fun! I might give it a try!

@berni1954 4 weeks

Here's my "Christmas Shanty" from 2012
https://youtu.be/sI-hiC1UIDM
I'd love to have done this with the old shanty group I was invovled with in the 1980s - which included shanty giants Jim Mageean and Johnny Collins (and various members of the Wilson Family among others).

I'll certainly try and add a Shanty her over FAWM

@the3queens 4 weeks

I'm in. I watched a great sea shanty/murder movie this summer. I'll have to look it up.

@katpiercemusic 4 weeks

Here's a silly one in the style of a Sea Shanty. Kind of combining current trends, I guess.
https://fawm.org/songs/111188/

@tawalker 4 weeks

I actually wrote a kind-of sea-shanty a couple of weeks ago, which I haven't demoed yet, but I'll probably record it for the first album of my new "alt-folk" project (which I'm using this FAWM to generate material for).

The twist of the song is, it's not clear whether the narrator is serving aboard a sea-ship on Earth, or a spaceship, but it could be either, and it's down to the listener to decide... as is whether the protagonist survived, or is telling his story from "beyond"!

@dudachris 4 weeks

@tawalker that sounds great! FILK content for sure 😁

I'm going to have to get in on this challenge!

@porrectus 4 weeks

Here is one that is in the style of a shanty. Kind of want to write a real one with nautical terms and more whiskey but I'll save it for later. Here it is.
https://fawm.org/songs/113183/

@complexissimple 4 weeks

I wrote some shanty lyrics, if anyone would like to take a crack at them musically https://fawm.org/songs/113310/

@chipwithrow 4 weeks

I think this one qualifies:
https://fawm.org/songs/113279/

@declan 4 weeks

Not exactly a sea shanty in the end. But I started out to write one...

https://fawm.org/songs/112359/

@yam655 3 weeks

I just found a shantybot in the Fediverse. Anyone interested in sea shanties written using Markov chains, should check out:

https://botsin.space/ @ shantybot

There doesn't seem to be a way to make the URL friendly to the forum. There shouldn't be any spaces, so it is /@ then "shantybot".

@mariekevinkmusic 3 weeks

So....if I wrote a shanty verse and chorus, would some people be interested in joining in to record harmonies and submit a verse? So we'd complete the lyrics first and then send a recording around to add harmonies one by one?

@complexissimple 3 weeks

@mariekevinkmusic That sounds cool. Send a recording around how?

@jeffokay 3 weeks

Earlier this week: wrote a sea shanty about clamming: https://fawm.org/songs/112056/
Yesterday: went clamming.

@tiller2 3 weeks

Awesome that you are all taking this on. I will go through everything in the next couple of days. And I'm working on a shanty on ... building democracy.

@eric 3 weeks

Stan Rogers' Barrett's Privateers is an absolute must-listen for any Sea Shanty writers: https://youtu.be/B6Nl3PaTimA

@adamhill 3 weeks

If anybody else, like me (or @mariekevinkmusic ) needs some help with their shanty, I've started a spreadsheet for those looking to give or receive help. More details in this thread:
https://fawm.org/forums/topic/11444/

@trolls2 3 weeks

if you ever need a lead female vocal I'm in, not because i want to shine but because I'm hopeless at harmonies. i have clear on pitch mezzo.

@circle 3 weeks

somehow I was inspired to do this when I saw the thread and have now written some sea shanty lyrics, something I never imagined doing

yet to see if I'll record them but still, FAWM eh

@kenmattsson 3 weeks

As someone who's been in the folk tradition for decades, I just want to be the curmudgeon about authenticity. What most people out there think are sea shanties aren't actual shanties. They might be sea songs, and more likely foc'sle songs, which were songs sung for entertainment by the men on the ship (foc'sle is short for forcastle, which is the front part of the ship where seamen would gather for drink and relaxation). Sea shanties are work songs with very particular beats to help with the timing of the work, like pulling line to raise a sail. They are usually call and response.

The Wellerman, which most people know now, is not an actual sea shanty.

@gem 3 weeks

I hadn’t seen this challenge but did a lyric sea shanty... https://fawm.org/songs/112247/

@berni1954 3 weeks

As promised here is my shanty. It was inspired by tales of shipwrecks among seal hunting sailors in the southern oceans.

https://fawm.org/songs/115554/

@scubed 3 weeks

I loved this challenge! I discovered the story of a remarkable young woman:
https://fawm.org/songs/115805/

@berni1954 3 weeks

As Ken has noted, a lot of what most people understand are shanties are rather "Sea Songs". As my response to the "Do Re Mi" challenge I came up with a song that I reckon would have made a great "Forecastle Shanty" or "Sea Song" sung up front when the sailors were not on duty.

Hope you have time to give it a listen:
https://fawm.org/songs/116414/

@complexissimple 3 weeks

I mentioned this song in this thread before, but now it has a demo! @gardeningangel1 did a fun performance of my nonsense lyrics. https://fawm.org/songs/113310/

@leka 2 weeks

not an actual seashanty, but something like that

https://fawm.org/songs/117253/

@bethdesombre 2 weeks

I'm so sorry that I wrote this song: https://fawm.org/songs/117384/

@ductapeguy 2 weeks

Here's my sea shanty. Does it count if it is an inland sea? ... if it is frozen? https://fawm.org/songs/117251/

@j8e2t56 2 weeks

Here's my sea shanty. Does it count if it's not near water at all? https://www.dropbox.com/s/pnvhr2liq83vo1m/Haul%20the%20Clothes%20.m...

@siebass 2 weeks

This challenge was much, much more difficult than I imagined after the write. The lyrics came easy, the music came with challenge, and new celtic flute and accordion patches. Plus you get to say rum-diddy-rum.

https://fawm.org/songs/118558/

@lyricslinger 2 weeks

I had a go at writing lyrics for a sea shanty. It's called May The Wind Blow For Us, and is a tale of a ship being pursued by pirates.

https://fawm.org/songs/118129/

Great fun to write!

@katpiercemusic 2 weeks

Here's mine. It's called Bell Buoy. Eventually I want to get a whole buttload of people singing harmony on it and maybe get my friend whose a kick ass bodhran player to do the percussion.

https://fawm.org/songs/119109/

@karlsburg25 2 weeks

YES i have managed to do one. True story All about a fishing angling club located in the Middle of England!! in my home village 😉 https://fawm.org/songs/119262/

@specious 2 weeks

Here is my contribution to the genre. It has no lyrics and is somewhat silly, but enjoy anyway.

https://soundcloud.com/user-49335416/shantastic-demo-for-fawm21

@specious 1 week

Yarrr ye cannot edit posts on mobile. The correct link: https://fawm.org/songs/119546/

@adamhill 1 week

Here's my contribution to the challenge - thanks to @elesimo, @nancyrost, and @complexissimple for helping out with vocals 😀

https://fawm.org/songs/119863/

@mardeycranbleson 1 week

Heres my entry https://fawm.org/songs/119947/

@cphaurckker 1 week

I tackled this one a couple of days back, chronicling the ice storm from the mid-Atlantic US last weekend:

https://fawm.org/songs/118262/

@scotttestmusic 1 week

My contribution, complete with tongue twisters. (Shall we sing a sea shanty?)

https://fawm.org/songs/120190/

@candle 1 week

Did a mashup of a christmas carol & a classic sea shanty - with a Candlesque twist. Hope you enjoy:

The Prophet's Birthday: https://fawm.org/songs/121069/

See You In The Shadows…

@rustyp 1 week

Here's my first attempt ever at a sea shanty.
https://fawm.org/songs/121331/

@krayzie003 1 week

I finally got around to this challenge. I've had the lyrics since the beginning of the month but just found the time to record the demo. https://fawm.org/songs/121494/

@andreasb 1 week

I did one for my first FAWM song.

https://fawm.org/songs/112061/

@regis 1 week

As a lifelong Wyomingite, I had to find the right right angle of approach for a sea shanty. Let 'er buck!
https://fawm.org/songs/121700/

@rustyp 1 week

So, I made good on my Jonah shanty

Who knows, maybe I'll write a few more and make it an EP or something. 😀

https://fawm.org/songs/122241/

@jeffokay 6 days

Second shanty of the FAWM!
https://fawm.org/songs/122800/

This one is a drinking song about crew of sailors on a weekend bender in Provincetown. Definitely about sailors. Nothing else besides sailors.

@dudachris 5 days

I'm fairly pleased with my entry 😁

https://fawm.org/songs/123110/

@ductapeguy 4 days

This one is not a sea shanty-- it's a work song, but the forms are closely related in folk tradition... https://fawm.org/songs/124091/

Discussion

FAWM Community

Regional Forums

Off Topic

Sea Shanty Challenge

@tiller2 7 weeks

@jeustan 7 weeks

@yam655 7 weeks

@yam655 7 weeks

@rshakesp 7 weeks

@guatecoop 7 weeks

@elainedimasi 7 weeks

@candle 7 weeks

@coolparadiso 7 weeks

@sjbatavia 7 weeks

@scubed 7 weeks

@aesthetic72 7 weeks

@donna 6 weeks

@markg 6 weeks

@katpiercemusic 6 weeks

@robynmackenzie 6 weeks

@radioovermoscow 6 weeks

@lazykat 6 weeks

@sbs2018 6 weeks

@krayzie003 6 weeks

@regis 5 weeks

@tseaver 5 weeks

@elainedimasi 5 weeks

@leka 5 weeks

@tootoobee 4 weeks

@davidbreslin101 4 weeks

@ineloquentsd 4 weeks

@karlsburg25 4 weeks

@hakk 4 weeks

@berni1954 4 weeks

@the3queens 4 weeks

@katpiercemusic 4 weeks

@tawalker 4 weeks

@dudachris 4 weeks

@porrectus 4 weeks

@complexissimple 4 weeks

@chipwithrow 4 weeks

@declan 4 weeks

@yam655 3 weeks

@mariekevinkmusic 3 weeks

@complexissimple 3 weeks

@jeffokay 3 weeks

@tiller2 3 weeks

@eric 3 weeks

@adamhill 3 weeks

@trolls2 3 weeks

@circle 3 weeks

@kenmattsson 3 weeks

@gem 3 weeks

@berni1954 3 weeks

@scubed 3 weeks

@berni1954 3 weeks

@complexissimple 3 weeks

@leka 2 weeks

@bethdesombre 2 weeks

@ductapeguy 2 weeks

@j8e2t56 2 weeks

@siebass 2 weeks

@lyricslinger 2 weeks

@katpiercemusic 2 weeks

@karlsburg25 2 weeks

@specious 2 weeks

@specious 1 week

@adamhill 1 week

@mardeycranbleson 1 week

@cphaurckker 1 week

@scotttestmusic 1 week

@candle 1 week

@rustyp 1 week

@krayzie003 1 week

@andreasb 1 week

@regis 1 week

@rustyp 1 week

@jeffokay 6 days

@dudachris 5 days