Rogue’s Gallery: The Art of the Siren, #42

Song: Lou Reed: Leave Her Johnny (5:31 minutes)
from Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys, ANTI- 2006.

Artist’s website;
songs playlist.

Buy CD in Germany and elsewhere.

Image: Lo: Little Mermaid, August 4, 2010.

Lyrics:

1.: Oh, the times are hard and the wages low,
leave her Johnny, leave her.
I guess it’s time for us to go,
and it’s time for us to leave her.

1.: Oh, I thought I heard the old man say:
Tomorrow you will get your pay.

2.: Liverpool Pat with his tarpaulin hat,
it’s Yankee John the packet rat.

3.: It’s rotten beef and weevily bread,
it’s pump or drown the old man said (ah huh).

4.: We’d be better off in a nice clean jail
with all night and plenty of ale.

5.: The mate was a bucko and the old man a Turk,
the bosun was a beggar with the middle name of work.

6.: The cook’s a drunk, he likes to booze.
‘tween him and the mate there’s a little to choose.

7.: I hate to sail on this rotten tub.
No grog allowed and rotten grub.

8.: No Liverpool bread, nor rotten cracker hash,
no dandy funk, nor cold and sloppy hash.

9.: The old man shouts, the pumps stand by —
Oh, we can never suck her dry.

10.: Now I thought I hear the old man say:
Just one more pull and then belay.

Fade-out: It’s time for us to leave her,
it’s time for us to leave her,
for the voyage is done and the winds don’t blow,
and it’s time for us to leave her.

Explanatory liner notes by ANTI-:

This chantey traditionally allowed for the airing of grievances at the end of a voyage and was used at the capstan while warping her in, or in the final session at the pumps. Very obscene verses were sometimes sung.