Rogue’s Gallery: The Art of the Siren, #28

Song: Bryan Ferry & Antony,
which is Antony Hegarty from Antony and the Johnsons;
featuring Kate St John on oboe:
Lowlands Low (2:36 minutes)
from Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys, ANTI- 2006.
Buy CD in Germany and elsewhere.
Images: Alkalinemouse: just hanging around, April 6, 2009;
Uncle Kuntz: ^uk^ LOST takes another twist, May 4, 2009.

Lyrics:

Our packet is the island lass,
Low lands lowlands lowlands low.
There’s a laddie howlin’ at the main topmast,
Low lands lowlands lowlands low.

The old man hails from Barbados.
He’s got the name of Hammer Toes.
He gives is us bread as hard as brass.
Our junk’s as salt as Balaam’s arse.

(Solo)

The monkey’s rigged in a soldier’s clothes.
Now, where he got ’em from, no one knows.
We’ll haul ’em high and let ’em dry.
We’ll trice ’em up into the sky.
It’s up aloft that yard must go.
Up aloft from down below.

(Solo)

Lowlands, me boys, and up she goes.
Get changed, me boys, to your shore-going clothes.

Explanatory liner notes by ANTI-:

This is a classic halyard chantey once popular in the West Indies. Many of the verses are direct references to getting the sails aloft. The lowlands was originally a reference to the Netherlands.

And Hulton “Ranzo” Clint adds:

This is a direct copy/cover of the recording by Ian Campbell, not the of “tradition” generally. Basically, Stan Hugill learned it from a chanteyman named “Tobago Smith,” and he printed it in his 1961 book. Campbell, presumably, read it in that book and made the recording. [He changed the objectionable word “nigger” to “laddie.” However, this was a song sung by Black sailors, who used that word in those days. By use of the word “laddie,” I think it perpetuates the misconception that chanteys were the domain chiefly of English/Irish/Scottish.] There is little or no other documentation of the chantey outside of Hugill’s text, so it is really stretching that ANTI calls it “a classic halyard chantey.” Also, “lowlands” in this obviously has nothing to do with the Netherlands! Their liner notes are a bit sketchy…