Singers at the Youth Traditional Song conference. Photo by Lorelei Erisis.
Photo by Lorelei Erisis
Country Dance & Song Society > Publications > Listen > Song of the Month

Song of the Month

Join us each month in song!

Since 2016—our designated Year of Song—CDSS has featured a traditional song each month. Lorraine Hammond spearheaded this effort, and it was such a popular feature that Judy Cook volunteered to continue the tradition in 2017 and beyond. 

Note: Many of these old songs should be looked at as “fairy tales for adults” in that they often address very strong, and sometimes scary, subject matter. They allow us to deal with difficult situations and emotions with the distance afforded by putting it in a song. They are cautionary tales, and had their use as such.

This month’s song:

  • Engraving illustrating "The Jolly Roving Tar" November 2024: Jolly Roving Tar
    Submitted by April Grant

    I can’t remember a time when I did not know “Jolly Roving Tar.” When I was a child, camping with my parents, they would sing “Jolly Roving Tar” with me to keep my spirits up while we walked to the restroom at night to brush our teeth. The combination of upbeat tune, pragmatic descriptions, and bleak ending makes this song powerful for me.

    I had thought the song originated in England, as is the case with many songs I like. To my delight, it was written in the US, for a Broadway musical. The song was written by Edward Harrigan (lyrics), and Dave Braham (music) for Harrigan’s show Old Lavender (1877).

    Sheet music for “Jolly Roving Tar” was published in 1885, and in the 20th century, the song was part of the repertoire of traditional singer Lena Bourne Fish. She recorded it for song collectors Frank and Anne Warner in the 1940s, when she lived in East Jaffrey, New Hampshire; it appears in their book Traditional American Folk Songs (1984) and would also become part of the repertoires of their sons, traditional singers Jeff Warner and Gerret Warner.

    The liner notes to the recording Songs & Sounds of the Sea describe Mrs. Fish as having learned the song from “an old whalerman.” It wouldn’t be the first instance of a song originating outside seagoing life and being enthusiastically adopted by sailors.

    My parents and I heard the song from a wealth of performers; my list of favorites includes the versions from Jeff Warner, Gerret Warner, Jerry Epstein, Brian Peters, and singing duo John Roberts and Tony Barrand, whose version is the one transcribed for this article. They recorded it in 1973 on their album Across The Western Ocean (as “Get Up Jack, John Sit Down”) and noted they had learned it initially from Peter Bellamy. They seem to have originated a way of drawing out the third line of every verse for maximum impact, which I’ve since heard from other performers.

    Peter Bellamy learned the song in the 1960s from the Warners, and seems to have inspired a lot of English singers to learn it too. From a performing standpoint, it’s heartwarming to me to see this as an example of how influence can go in all directions. When you are an American folk singer, it’s easy to become obsessed with English and Scottish songs that survived in the US, and from there to fall into the misconception that influence only moves westwards, and that songs originating in the US are less important than those from the UK and Ireland.

    In his album notes, Peter Bellamy mentions other versions, but as far as I’ve gathered, he’s talking about an older ballad about a woman running away to sea, and the song we’re discussing isn’t derived from that song. They’re unrelated except for the words “jolly roving tar.”

    Maybe the older song’s title influenced Harrigan; certainly, Harrigan packs some solid nautical slang into the lyrics. As a child I’d assumed eight bells meant eight p.m., but the code for signaling time aboard ships meant that an officer rang the bell eight times at the end of any four-hour watch (so, no matter what time the clock says, it’s time for Jack to get out).

    The original sheet music lyrics and Mrs. Fish’s version describe Jack as eating “souse,” but some performers, including John Roberts and Tony Barrand, sing “scouse” instead. As a fan of food history, I’m happy to say that both those options make sense. Souse is a meat dish cooked with liquid ingredients and seasonings to make the meat go further (it’s still a part of many cooking traditions, often including lime juice, as per this Bahamian recipe). Scouse is meat stew, popular in the seafaring city of Liverpool (UK) to the point where “Scouser” is a slang term for a person from Liverpool. (“Scouse” or “lobscouse” may get its name from a Latvian phrase literally meaning “good bowl.”)

    “Jolly Roving Tar” in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library

    Listen to John Roberts and Tony Barrand singing “Jolly Roving Tar:”

    Sheet music for "The Jolly Roving Tar"
    Download the sheet music for “The Jolly Roving Tar.”

    Lyrics

    Well, ships may come and ships may go, just as long as the seas do run,
    And a sailor lad, likewise his dad, he loves his pork and rum.
    Now a lass ashore he do adore, one that is plump and round,
    But when your money’s all gone it’s the same old song, get up, Jack, John, sit down.

    Chorus: 
    Come along, come along, me jolly brave boys, there’s plenty more grog in the jar,
    We’ll plow the briny ocean with the jolly roving tar.

    When Jack’s ashore, he’ll make his way to some old boarding house,
    He’s welcomed in with rum and gin, likewise with pork and scouse,
    And he’ll spend and he’ll spend and he’ll never offend, until he lies drunk on the ground…

    Chorus

    Jack then will slip aboard some ship bound for India or Japan;
    For in Asia there, the ladies fair all love a sailor man.
    And he’ll go ashore and he won’t scorn to buy some maid a gown…

    Chorus

    Jack—Jack is old and weather-beat, too old to sail about,
    They’ll let him stop in some grog shop till eight bells do ring out.
    Then he’ll raise his hands high and loud he’ll cry, “Great God, I’m homeward bound…”

    April Grant writes poems, songs, and short stories, and sings traditional and original songs. Her work has been referred to as “riveting” and “playful yet sinister.” She has sung and told stories in person at venues across New England, including the Connecticut Sea Music Festival (2022), the Blue Hill Maritime Festival (2024), the New England Folk Festival (multiple years), and the Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival (2004 and 2024), and via the internet to international audiences during the pandemic. Her interests include traditional and trad-adjacent songs, history, and local legends.

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