Drunken Sailor

    Drunken Sailor is an awesome song for several reasons.  It's one of the few songs that little kids know, because the tune is used on "Spongebob Squarepants" as well as the Backyardigans, where it is known as "Scurvy Pirate."

    It's also a really good song to learn on the mandolin.  It's simple enough to play for beginners, and the modal key sounds great on the mando.  

    In the US, for some reason we usually sing this with a quasi-Irish accent, or specifically "ear-lye in the morn-in'."

      This song is not just silliness, however.  In a way it's very serious.  One of the chronic problems experienced by a seafaring vessel is that the sailors have too much fun when they get shore leave.   After spending all of their money on women and alcohol, they might easily fall asleep.  That could either cause the ship to be delayed, or to leave without them, effectively marooning them in port until such time as they can negotiate a new position in a diffferent crew.  Needless to say, lateness was frowned upon.  One need have not doubt that the punishments described in this song were actually carried out.  Peer pressure as well as threats from managment (i.e., the Captain) were both used.  For example, a scupper is a passage on the ship for water to run off the deck of the ship.  So "put him in the scuppers with hosepipe on him" means that the other sailors are going to spray him with the dirty water runoff from the the deck.   

      By the same token, Keelhauling is a particular grim punishiment, in which a rope is tied around the offender. The other end ot the rope is draped under the ship, so that when the offender is  thrown overboard, the other sailors pull on the rope to drag him under the keel of the ship.  The sharp barnacles on the keel could cause the hapless victim to be literally cut to pieces if he doesn't drown. 

     Better you should simply have your belly shaved with a rusty razor (although in some versions the area to be shaved is a bit further south).



     Hence the song is a reminder to crew members what can happen if a sailor gets too drunk. 

This version comes to us from the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.  Try not to overdo the accent, but "Ear-lye in the morning" is pretty much standard even on this side of the Atlantic. 

     Drunken Sailor is in the Dorian Mode.  In other words, this is a different scale than normally used.  For that reason, the modal chord progression is I II-minor, V-minor, rather than the normal I-IV-V.  In this case, however, Drunken Sailor only uses two chords, and the minor fifth never shows up.  Hence, in the Dorian Modal key of G, the song looks something like this:

Am
What will we do with a drunken sailor?
G
What will we do with a drunken sailor?
Am
What will we do with a drunken sailor?
G                Am
Early in the morning!

Am
Way hay and up she rises,
G
Way hay and up she rises,
Am
Way hay and up she rises,
G               AM
Early in the morning!

Shave his belly with a rusty razor,
Shave his belly with a rusty razor,
Shave his belly with a rusty razor,
Early in the morning!

(chorus)
Put him in a long boat till his sober,
Put him in a long boat till his sober,
Put him in a long boat till his sober,
Early in the morning!

(chorus)

Put him in the scuppers with a hosepipe on him,
Put him in the scuppers with a hosepipe on him,
Put him in the scuppers with a hosepipe on him,
Early in the morning!
(chorus)

Put him in the bed with the captains daughter,
Put him in the bed with the captains daughter,
Put him in the bed with the captains daughter,
Early in the morning!

(chorus)

Keel haul him until he's sober
Keel haul him until he's sober
Keel haul him until he's sober
Early in the morning!

That’s what we do with a drunken sailor,
That’s what we do with a drunken sailor,
That’s what we do with a drunken sailor,
Early in the morning!

(10,000 additional verses)

How Many Songs Does an Old Time Musician Know?

     How many tunes does an Old Time musician have memorized?  Some of us were discussing this after the Wednesday Night Morgantown Brew Pub jam, and some of the people who are relatively knew to Old Time assumed that it must be some huge number of songs.  Hence they were surprised that some of the veterans figured it was not that many, maybe a hundred or so, and that those were usually an accident.

      In classical music, everyone is obliged to play exactly the same way, note to note, and for that reason, the music must be written down.

      But in Old Time, someone (usually the lead fiddler) has to know the basic melody, and the rest is made up on the fly.  There are literally an infinite number of variations possible, based on what the other musicians are doing and the musical sensibilities of each musician.   Different musicians have different ways of approaching music.  Some no doubt just intuitively know what notes sound good together, whereas other musicians have a more technical approach.  But very little of Old Time is transferred via note for note transcription and memorization.   Somehow, Old Time musicians, especially fiddlers, have ESP and can know in advance when the chord is going to change and where the song is going.  

     Here is a case in point, a fantastic jam with Andy Falco (guitar), Cody Kilby (guitar), Britanny Haas (fiddle), and Jeremy Garrett (fiddle).  I don’t know any of them personally, but my guess is that that the guys have played together before, and have invited the babe to jam with them.  Naturally, they picked a song that they can absolutely destroy, but Britanny is doing this song with them probably for the first time.  From Britanny’s facial expressions, you can tell that she is figuring out how to play the tune the first time through.   Then by her second or third time through, she is dishing it out with the boys, adding complex variations to the basic tune.  Basically the four musicians are each having fun with the tune, adding different sounds and textures each time through.  By the end of the video, smoke is curling from the instruments, the sky is darkening and the camera is shaking as the earth trembles.  Well, okay, maybe it’s not that dramatic, but you get the idea.   All four musicians are playing together but at the same time challenging each other with different sounds and variations on the basic tune.   And no, they would not be able to write down note for note what they played.  Without recording equipment each version would be impossible to recapture.