![]() ** Gratitude to Danny Spooner for this verse. *Verses I wrote or rearranged in order to lengthen the song and to differentiate from similar lines utilized in other chanteys. Oh son, you’re a fool for to follow the sea!Ī long strong pull should shift the dead! All circumstantial, I freely admit, but it still seems the best fit… It is doubtful that every work song shipboard is the result of literary musings or elevated thought, so there ya go!Īround Cape Stiff through the frost and snow. So my theory is that as the whole crew did the work, they still found humour in taunting the “green” or inexperienced hands. One does find tunes and songs relating to Napoleon and the “Bonny Bunch of Roses O”, but but the evidence for this song is not there and on a personal note I suspect that the point of the song is a bit grittier… I have found in numerous references dating to the 18 th and early 19 th century of men being taunted in military and maritime situations by either being called out as “whores” and “whoresons” and variants, or as “pansies”, “pinks”, “posies”, and even “roses”… not unlike experienced soldiers and sailors of recent days taunting “green” recruits. Stan Hugill wrote that this song was popular not only in Liverpool ships but also among Yankee ships and that it likely derived from an English song regarding Napoleon and British soldiers, or “redcoats”. Another suggests that the sailors were making sport of the Marines on board as they aided in hauling the kill, but one would never find Royal Marines working a whaling ship so that’s out. There has been much speculation as to just what the “blood red roses” were as well as the “pinks and posies” one source speculates that it is an imagery of the bubbling blood of a dying whale as they hauled the kill alongside. BLOOD RED ROSES is a halyard chantey sometimes called “Bunch o’ Roses” or some variant.
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