50: Blow the Man Down

For the 50th song on this blog, I thought I'd go back to the very first Liverpool folk song I knew of - I've had the chorus of this song rattling around in my head since I was 7: "Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down, to me whey hey blow the man down, Blow him right back into Liverpool town, gimme some time to blow the man down!" The tune I sing here is the one I've known since then, at slight variance in its 2nd half to most of the tunes I've seen written down... this is almost certainly because of the distorting effects of memory recall, but I see no point in 'correcting' my childhood memory of the tune in the interests of some false authenticity.

That said (getting off my high horse now), apart from that chorus I don't really know what other words I learned as a child, although I definitely remember the reference to Paradise Street, because the song would go through my head whenever I walked down there. There are numerous versions of this halyard shanty, but I can state with 100% certainty that the words I'm using here, based on the singing of Stan Hugill, aren't the ones I was taught as a child. They tell the story of an assault on a police officer; the protagonist in the song is accused of being a thief sailing aboard the trans-Atlantic Black Ball line, but protests that he is a victim of mistaken identity, and is actually a 'flying fish sailor'. According to Hugill this meant "a John who preferred the lands of the East and the warmth of the Trade Winds to the cold and misery of the Western Ocean" - such flying fish sailors were seen as softies in comparison to those who sailed under the harsh conditions of the Black Ball Line.

Paradise Street, once at the heart of Liverpool's sailortown, is now almost entirely engulfed by the monument to chain-store consumerism that is Liverpool One. Nevertheless, if you do find yourself 'rolling down Paradise Street' for some reason, you'll see the beautiful gates of the Sailor's Home (pictured above) have been installed there as some kind of reminder of the street's maritime history.

The various versions of Blow the Man Down are all #2624 in the Roud folksong index.

49: Go To Sea Once More

A cautionary tale from Mersey shantyman Stan Hugill's Shanties of the Seven Seas. Versions of this song were also collected from American sailors by W.M. Doerflinger, W. Roy Mackenzie and others, and it's been recorded by Jerry Garcia out of the Grateful Dead so perhaps because of that I get the impression that a lot of people think of it as more of an Northern American song - but like many sea songs, it's something that spread from port to port across the world, and this is the version that Hugill says was "very popular with Liverpool seamen". Hugill also remarks on the fact that the tune is somewhat reminiscent of Greensleeves (which I suppose it is) and that this version of the song was a forbitter (i.e. a song for entertainment rather than a work song) "since it had no all-hands-in chorus".

A.L. Lloyd, who recorded versions of this song which he had collected from Wales, writes in the sleeve notes to "Leviathan!": "Who was Rapper Brown, the villain of the piece? Particularly during the latter days of sail, many lodging house keepers encouraged seamen to fall in debt to them, then signed them aboard a hardcase ship in return for the “advance note” loaned by the company to the sailor ostensibly to buy gear for the voyage. Paddy West of Great Howard Street, Liverpool, was well-known for this" (we have, of course, already heard about Paddy West...)

One of the interesting aspects of the song is its reference to the whaling trade: on the Liverpool museums website, Stephen Guy writes that "Today scant remains to remind us of this little-known period which ran parallel with the early growth of Liverpool. One place is Greenland Street, off Jamaica Street in the city centre. The waters off Greenland were among the places the Liverpool whalers hunted lucrative sperm whales and other species valuable for their oil-rich blubber and baleen - whalebone used for making ladies’ corsets (stays). It is likely that Greenland Street got its name because it housed the warehouses, counting houses and offices linked to the whaling industry... Whaling was dangerous, particularly when icebergs were around, and in 1789 it was recorded that four Liverpool whalers were lost. In 1827 only one whaler, The Baffin, was operating full-time out of Liverpool and by 1830 there was no more trade out of the port." The picture I'm using above, "Success to the James of Liverpool" is one of the few known paintings of a whaling ship operating out of Liverpool and dates from c.1810-1820.

In the Roud folksong index, this is #644

48: A Double Thick Marmalade Butty

An affectionate tribute to childhood malnutrition by Frank Lewis, a Merseyside teacher, I think this was written for and first recorded in the mid-70s by The Jacksons. This was for a long time a part of the repetoire of Billy Maher and Jacqui and Bridie, and like many songs here, it plays into the tongue in cheek nostalgia that characterised the Liverpool folk revival. Gerry Jones' excellent Liverpool Lyrics website has a set of words to the song provided by Frank's daughter Sarah; Gerry's website also includes a tribute from a former pupil, who says "around 1982-85, Frank Lewis was my teacher in Primary School. He was from Liverpool,and he would get his guitar out and sing it to us".

Since recording this earlier today, I've found a youtube video apparently featuring Frank Lewis with Roy Brobyne singing this song in what looks like a fine living-room singalong!

The image above is a still from the 1965 BBC documentary "The Singing City", and shows 3 kids having a picnic on the traffic island in front of the entrance to Lewis's department store.

47: Every Other Saturday

Seeing as it's the FA cup final later today, I really thought I should add something appropriate. This is a massively popular Liverpool F.C. song, and you can hear it most matchdays in The Albert pub - any 'errors' can and should be blamed on the people drinking there, as that's what I'm basing the version here on! It should be said that this was originally a Rangers F.C. song (cue disparaging comments about how Scousers will steal anything and everything). But of course, the nature of folk music is that it travels and is adapted to new contexts. This version has become pretty solidly rooted in Liverpool F.C. traditions, to the extent quite a lot of Liverpool fans do express surprise when they find out that this is a song borrowed from the singing of Rangers fans. Certainly its been adapted to our needs both melodically and lyrically. The final words of the song ("I'd walk a million miles for one of your goals"), to a tune borrowed from 'My Mammy', pay tribute to Kenny Dalglish, former star player and currently manager.

It should be noted that some people might wonder whether the very idea of talking about "Every other saturday" off is completely obsolete given that most of Liverpool's matches are played on a Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, any other time than Saturday! And can any working person really afford the ticket price on their 'half day off'?

46: The Ellan Vannin Tragedy

A song written in 1961 by Hughie Jones of Liverpool folk group The Spinners. (Hughie Jones is, of course, still an active part of the Liverpool folk scene; he runs the Everyman Folk Club, which due to the refurbishment of the Everyman met for a while in the Fly and the Loaf but has now moved to a new venue on the corner of Oldham Street and Roscoe Street.) This song commemorates the loss of the SS Ellan Vannin, which sank in 1909.

The SS Ellan Vannin was an iron paddle steamer with the Isle of Man Steam Packet company, and was built in Glasgow in 1860. In the early hours of 3 December 1909, the Ellan Vannin set sail from Ramsey for Liverpool with passengers, cargo, and mail, but during the journey weather conditions deteriorated. By the time Ellan Vannin had reached the Mersey Bar lightship, the waves were over 25 feet high, with winds of 80 miles per hour. The ship sank, and all 21 crew members and 15 passengers drowned.

The image above is a depiction of the disaster drawn by Arthur Burgess and printed in The Graphic newspaper of December 25 1909 - I found it on The Wreck Site, an online database of shipwrecks.

45: Poor Paddy Works on the Railway

A song celebrating (or should I say commiserating?) the Irish navvy at work; this version was collected from Albert Gillmore of Birkenhead and published in The Shuttle and Cage: Industrial Folk Ballads edited by Ewan MacColl. Gibb Schreffler, whose knowledge of shanties is greater than my own, has made me aware that the tune here is very similar not only to that used by Stan Hugill, but also one published by Whall in Ships, sea songs, and shanties, so it seems (possibly unlike other variations e.g. that collected from Newton Heath Railway Shed, Manchester and also published by MacColl) that what we have here is a version used at sea.

Although now very much sung by people with their feet on dry land - slightly further south in Cheshire it was even popular with fans of Crewe Alexandra ("the railwaymen") - this song has a long Liverpool association from its use as a capstan shanty. Edward Keble Chatterton, in a 1923 book called The Mercantile Marine, quotes Liverpool shipowner Sir William B. Forwood: "On the morning of the 20th November, 1857, I embarked by a tender from the Liverpool pierhead. It was nearly the top of high water. The crew were mustered on the forecastle, under the 1st Mate, Mr. Taylor. An order comes from the quarter-deck. ' Heave up the anchor and get away.' Aye, aye, sir.' 'Now then, my boys, man the windlass,' shouts the Mate, and to a merry chantie:
'In 1847 Paddy Murphy went to Heaven
To work on the railway, the railway, the railway,
Oh, poor Paddy works upon the railway'
'The anchor is away, sir,' shouts the Chief Officer. 'Heave it a-peak and cathead it,' comes from the quarter-deck, and the tug retriever forges ahead and tightens the tow-rope as we gather way. Bang, bang went the guns, and twice more, for we were carrying the mails, and good-bye to old Liverpool, and the crowds which lined the pierhead cheered, for the Red Jacket was already a famous ship, and it was hoped she would make a record passage."

Irish navvies in their thousands were responsible for work on many of the wonders that made Liverpool a great 19th century power, including the construction Liverpool-Manchester Railway, the world's first inter-city passenger railway. In spite of their essential role for the economy, however, at the time they were more often associated with criminality and disorder, as noted by Roger Swift in The Irish in Britain, who describes "three days of fierce fighting between 300 Irish navvies and 240 English railway labourers engaged on the line of the Chester and Birkenhead Railway" in 1839.

The Daniel O'Connell referred to in the fifth verse was the Irish Member of Parliament who lived from 1775-1847, campaigner for Catholic Empancipation and the separation of Ireland from the Union.

The Spinners sang a different version of this song under the title 'Fillimiooriay'; the song has travelled widely, as witnessed by the existence of American versions with titles like 'Poor Paddy Works on the Railroad' and 'Poor Paddy Works on the Erie'. It is #208 in the Roud folksong index.

Reboot

Just writing a quick line to say that after a short hiatus, I'm ready to get back into the swing of things here. Temporary loss of hearing took some of the pleasure out of singing for a while, but I've recovered and just enjoyed a great couple of weeks in Liverpool getting my voice back, singing at the Ellesmere Port Shanty Festival and at the singarounds in St. Stephens, the Lion Tavern, and the Derby Arms (Aughton). So I'm very excited to start up my project here again; I plan on posting song number 45 this Friday.

Sadly, a year has now passed since I started, so I haven't reached my target of singing a song a week for a year, but these things happen; and at least this means that I can free myself of the artificial restriction of singing only 52 songs! I now plan on carrying this project through to 60 songs. Which means you'll be stuck with me for a bit longer...