SAILOR SONGS

 "In her hair, she wore a yellow ribbon,

She wore it in the springtime and the merry month of May,

Hey, hey, and if you asked her why the hell she wore it,

She wore it for a sailor who is far, far away."

These lines have been going around in my head for some days now. Maybe because it is the month of May which, however, is not very merry in India though real summer heat has still to set in Delhi this year. But the song brings on nostalgia with sweet memories for me.

It was in late 1940s during his first leave after joining the Navy that I heard Vinnie Mama sing this shanty and learnt it from him. I didn't know nor inquired about the significance of the girl wearing a 'yellow ribbon' and took it that it was her or her sailor's favourite colour. But now that we have internet and the know-all Dr./Prof. Google, I thought of checking and discovered that it is believed that the tradition had its origins in the US Civil War when a yellow ribbon in a woman's hair indicated that she was "taken" by a man who was absent due to service in the US Army Cavalry.

There is another popular shanty, "Ship Ahoy", which is an English music hall song dating back to 1908. Its chorus goes-

"All the nice girls love a sailor, all the nice girls love a tar,

For there's something about a sailor, well, you know what sailors are,

Bright and breezy, free and easy, he's the ladies' pride and joy,

Falls in love with Kate and Jane, then he's off to sea again!"

I have an issue with the last line; it echoes the saying which much maligns a sailor by stating that he has a girl in every port. Having been a sailor, I know that's not true. Let alone every port, I didn't have a girl in any, not even in my home port. If at all I had a girl, she was in a town far inland though a river runs through it. Actually, a sailor pines to quickly get done with the sailing and return home hoping his girl is waiting for him and that absence has made her heart grow fonder for him and not somebody else! Remember the 1956 Eddie Fisher song-

"Cindy, Oh Cindy, Cindy don't let me down'

Write me a letter soon and I"ll be homeward bound.... 

I know my Cindy is waiting, as I walk the decks alone,

Her loving arms reach out to me, soon I"ll be heading home,

Then my sailing days will be over, and no more will I roam...."

At times the sailor falls in love with a girl in a visiting port but, heartbroken, has to leave her. Listen to Harry Belafonte in "Jamaican Farewell":

"But I'm sad to say I'm on my way, won't be back for many a day,

My heart is down my head is turning around,

I had to leave a little girl in Kingston town."

If the sailor can't go back, he wishes that somehow the girl is brought to him as in an old Scottish shanty-

"My Bonnie lies over the ocean, my Bonnie lies over the sea.

My Bonnie lies over the ocean, oh, bring back my Bonnie to me.

Bring back, bring back, bring back my Bonnie to me, to me...."

Or better still, bring her back along with himself as many Indian naval officers who went for training to UK in the early days did though sometimes the unsuspecting parents were shocked out of their wits to get a cable out of the blue saying "Coming home with Dorothy!"

I must confess one sin most sailors are guilty of and that is their fondness for a drink, particularly Rum. In his famous novel "Treasure Island", Robert Louis Stevenson invented a song, "Dead Man's Chest", for his pirate characters and wrote the chorus: 

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest.

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Drink and the devil had done for the rest,

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum."

The chorus with added lyrics has been used in many songs in subsequent plays, TV serials and movies and the phrase "Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum" is universally popular. 

Traditionally in the British Navy, a 'tot' of rum was given to sailors as a morale booster and reward for hard work as also a medicine with the rum mixed with lime juice to keep scurvy at bay. One drink leads to another particularly for a lonely sailor far away from his home and girl. So we have the shanty, "Drunken Sailor":

"What shall we do with a drunken sailor, what shall we do with a drunken sailor,

What shall we do with a drunken sailor early in the morning?

Shave his belly with a rusty razor....

Put him in a long boat till he's sober....

Stick him in a scupper with a hosepipe bottom...."

And naughtily or nautically'

"Put him in the bed with the captain's daughter....

Early in the morning!"

Fondness for drink could get sailors, young and old, in trouble. The Beach Boys described it in "Sloop John B"-

"We come on the sloop John B, my grandfather and me,

Around Nassau town we did roam,

Drinking all night, got into a fight,

Well, I feel so broke up, I wanna go home."

Yes, all said and done, a sailor's life is a lonely one with him looking forward to return home to his loved ones. He eagerly awaits the words "Anchors Aweigh" as in the marching song we were first introduced to in our NDA days:

"Anchors aweigh, my boys, anchors aweigh,

Farewell to foreign shores, we sail at break of day-ay-ay-ay,

Through our last night ashore, drink to the foam,

Until we meet once more.

Here's wishing you a happy voyage home."

And now that we have girl sailors, they'll sing similar tunes and know that ‘a girl in every port’ is as much a myth as would be ‘a boy in every port.’