Come Down, You Bunch o' Roses [364-366] (274-277)

[fjchild]

Very nicely "chanted" and excellent background. I've sung the MacColl/Loyd (now standard) version more than 50 years and, like Hugill, cannot understand why it's so rarely collected or sung. Kinsey (1989) gives this Hugill set, only changing (likely reverting) v.8 from "Spanish gals" to 'Spanish whores.'

There's also the Boarding Party's rendition of "Come Down, You Roses." I guess it's a version.

[hultonclint]

@fjchild Hi! Thanks. The Boarding Party rendition is based on the Lomax/Bahamas recording.

[Azizip17]

@ hultonclint, regarding your comment that "there is no documented use of *any* shanty".., I found this YT video because of the title reminded me of a children's game song from Trinidad that I remembered reading & hearing on "Brown Girl In The Ring" (New York: Pantheon Press, 1997). That song's title is "Coming Down With A Bunch Of Roses". Google Cocojams Children's Rhymes & Cheers for the words to this song. This shows that this chantey lives on in modified form in a children's game song.

[hultonclint]

@Azizip17 Ahem... "Interestingly, there is no documented use of *any* shanty, THAT WE KNOW TODAY, FROM 200 YEARS AGO." This means that none of the shanties that were alive in oral tradition to be written down/recorded in the late 19th and 20th century and, and consequently some of which have been passed down in known form to the present, are documented to have existed before 1810.

"Coming Down with a bunch of roses" is under my point #6 in the video description.

[hultonclint]

@Azizip17 An excerpt from that 1962 recording is at the end of this video.

[captinjim1]

i think that every place in the wold their will be changes in the words. i think that is pull out blood red roses from the pull out your cannon,. blood red roses, men of england ,emblem a blood red rose on thier football shirts rugby. i think that its over 200 years old and its still sung well

[hultonclint]

@captinjim1 Thanks. Interestingly, there is no documented use of *any* shanty, that we know today, from 200 years ago!

[MahSchoolworkMusic]

AMAZING performance! I've known the chorus to this all my life, but never the verses, so I finally got around to looking it up!

On the "blood-red roses" question;

I actually believe that it's a whaling song, and that the roses in question are the rosettes of blood swirling in the water from the stricken whale. At least that's what my dad said. ^^ Hope it helps.

~HookSilverSparrow

[hultonclint]

I'm glad you found this. Thanks very much for your compliment and comment.

[Shantyman47]

You would not believe the trouble I have getting folks to sing the chorus correctly to time. AND to not sing "You pinks n posies" as part of chorus. So what chance of me gettin the buggers ta sing "Come down". None at all, matey.

You have done it well. Best version I have heard yet.

P.S. Donchya just love the way this shanty is all out of sinc with the sails rising in Moby Dick??? lol

[hultonclint]

Ah! you see the draw that this YouTube thing has for me -- it's like a blog where I can put my opinions (explicit or implicit!) about how I think "it should be done" (well, at least at that moment -- I often look back and change my mind, or make mistakes). See, like you say in a group you could never sing "Come Down," but on this I can! :) ... and maybe, just maybe, others will see it and "adjust" their interpretation.

[philipsmovies]

A fantastic vocal performance.

[hultonclint]

I appreciate it, phillip, thanks.

[MeFiMiko]

In using this at topsail halyards, you'd pull on COME, BUNCH, and COME. It's fast-paced, but would work okay, especially because it's a lighter pull and soon over.

My thoughts on interpretation: The chanteyman is insulting the masculinity of the sailors, in an attempt to goad them to work faster. He calls them "a bonny bunch of roses," "pinks," and "posies" - I bet the intent of likening men to pretty flowers hasn't changed that much in 100 or so years!

[MeFiMiko]

As a topsail chantey, you'd pull on COME, BUNCH, COME and it would work fine, a fast pace, but that's okay because it's a light pull.

My thoughts on interpretation: the chanteyman is calling the rest of the crew a "bunch of roses," "pinks," and "posies" as a way of insulting their masculinity, and hopefully goading them into working harder. As he commands them to "come down" he's pulling the halyard straight downward to the belaying pin - the faster it comes down, the sooner the work is done.

[hultonclint]

If you haven't already, be sure to check out the excerpted clip from "Moby Dick" where they use A.L. Lloyd's version of this chantey to raise a tops'l yard. It's a priceless older example on film of the action + chantey.

[catamaraner]

One other tops'l (oft "heavy hauling") is "Bring 'em Down," which shares some lyrics w/ other shanties, "In Liverpool... I was born/ bring 'em down!/ But London is me home from home / bring 'em down! / Them Rotherhite girls they look so fine / bring 'em down! / They're never a day behind the time... and so forth. Lloyd says he pulled it from the West Indies, where it had gone ashore as a stick-fighting song. One line I loved that has been changed: "thick in the arm and thick in the head" :-)

[hultonclint]

People have suspected that Lloyd made up "Bring Em Down." However, I have found a digging song in a book of Jamaican songs that appears to be the basis for it. I think Lloyd basically shaped a new form of it. Somehow, he seems to have gotten the digging sticks mixed up with "fighting sticks."

[catamaraner]

Excellent strong main line! The tempo is a little fast on the "blood red roses" part, for a tops'l halyard chantey, if you think about the length of each haul on a large sail, and I learned it as "Go down, you blood red roses, Go down," but with the same main line, with the two harmonies of the chorus separated by a major fourth (very powerful and somewhat alien-sounding). The "Blood red roses" were supposedly the same as lobsterbacks -- that is, armed redcoats being carried aboard for overseas.

[hultonclint]

Thanks for your comments (which I'm just now seeing)! Well, I'm aware of the popular "go down, you blood red roses," but as my notes begin to explain, I don't think that line is authentic I have an elaborate argument :) why I think Bert Lloyd basically made that up -- the "redcoats" idea is based on those lyrics...which I don't think were ever there in the first place. A gr8 chantey whatever the lyrics! Yes, tempo is a little faster than in this clip (compare):

/watch?v=hdiFYCUP9oU

[johnnyrafter]

Madness geezer! You looked like you had right fun making this one! Enjoyable, as per usual.

JRII

[hultonclint]

yeah, man, it was crazy!

[medicinesocks]

wow, sounded great! i really enjoyed the endpieces too, and your scholarship is first rate, fascinatin stuff. but the wow was for some terrific singing there

[hultonclint]

Thanks, nice to hear from you. My goal was to sing in a way that I think would inspire people to work hard. Luckily this particular chantey was in a good pitch range for me to try that, so it was fun.

[raymondcrooke]

Excellent work from you and your two friends! Equally excellent background information.

[hultonclint]

Thanks, Raymond. I'm always fascinated by the interplay of the "folk process" and (what I call) the "media process." Ah, the double edged sword of technology: it's ability to both preserve and petrify :)