Oh, take up the sheets, me hearties, water the decks with brine! Bend to the oars, you lousy whores, none is bigger than mine! University of Illinois Press, , pp. Kinsey, Songs of the Sea Robert Hale, , p. Cray in Erotic Muse: Four old whores - even one with 5 whores. He cites Legman that it is the oldest known English erotic song and that John Greenway's notes on the album agree and that it descends from "A Talk of Ten Wives on Their Husbands," circa It seems this one starts as relating to males but all recent ones relate to females.
Has anyone seen any "missing links? Arthur's chorus type is more often seen: Oh, heave on the sheets me hearties, Cover the decks with brine, Pull on the oars, you lousy whores, There's none that's bigger than mine. Is there any knowledge of actual chanties of this? Seagoing 'Catters will recognize that "Water the decks with brine" makes no nautical sense whatsoever. Legman wrote that the song's original chorus was always dysphemistic. Robert W. Gordon collected a version of the song from an old American sailor on the West Coast around The filed recording and Gordon's transcript were at one time in the Folk Music Archive of the Library of Congress, but have vanished since then - without a trace, it would seem.
The ol' spouse says I do that a lot. If you're really close hauled and the ship's heeled over considerable, it might ship enough "brine" to cover the decks.
I find the following in Gordon's "Inferno. A man went in in January And never come out until June. They had coma from Platts- burg Barracks. I have since heard it among members of the Thirtieth Infantry from the same garrison, and at Fort Ethan Allen, the branch of the service changing in the chorus accord- ing to the one the singer belonged to. Heard some drunks sing- ing it at Connigis, France, near Chateau Thierry.
They were probably from the Thirtieth, although that regiments sector was some distance to the left. Up stood the first one Said mines as big as the sea. The ships sail in and the ships sail out The rigging it hangs free. Then up stood the second one Said mine's as big as air The suns goes sailing round and round And never scratchin' a hair.
