| Author | Topic: Add: Sally Brown | |
| dmcg | Posted - 22 Sep 04 - 09:05 am | |
Sally Brown she's a bright mulatter, (Way-ay-y, roll and go.) She drinks rum and chews terbaccer, (Spend my money on Sally Brown) Seven long years I courted Sally, Seven long years I courted Sally. Sally Brown she has a daughter Sent me sailing 'cross the water. Sally Brown she's a bright mulatter, She drinks rum and chews terbaccer. Source: Singing Together, Autumn 1965, BBC Publications Notes: Listed as a Capstan Shanty. See also the Hugill Collection, Nos 48-50. | ||
| diane easby | Posted - 22 Sep 04 - 12:44 pm | |
Even when I was singing this as an innocent schoolchild, I thought there must be MUCH more to the story than this. Why did Sally Brown send the sailor away? To earn money to keep the daughter or were there deeper soci-political reasons? | ||
| Jon Freeman | Posted - 22 Sep 04 - 01:01 pm | |
Maybe to sail on The Good Ship Kangaroo? | ||
| dmcg | Posted - 22 Sep 04 - 01:13 pm | |
Hugill's version is a lot longer - 21 verses - but there is very little more in terms of story or explanation. However, since the sailor spends 'seven long years courting Sally' then later he 'kissed yer daughter' but 'She wouldn't have a tarry sailor' it would be possible to construct an interpretation where the sailor is trying to court both mother and daughter. I think this would be stretching things, though. Here are verses 13 to 16 to think about. 13: Sally Brown she wouldn't marry An' I no longer cared to tarry. 14: Sally Brown, I love yer daughter, I love yer farm beside the water. [or: For her I'll sail across the water] 15: Sally Brown, I kissed yer daughter, Stopped her rum an' gave her water. 16: She wouldn't have a tarry sailor, So I shipped away in a New Bedford whaler. At first reading, the 'She' in verse 16 would be the daughter. But if verses 14 and 15 were omitted, the song would flow as well assuming 'She' was Sally. Given the fluidity of all shanties, it would not surprise me if these verses were sometimes present, sometimes absent and sometimes somewhere else entirely in the song. So I don't think it possible to get much more explanation of people's actions out of Hugill's version. | ||
| Jon Freeman | Posted - 22 Sep 04 - 01:28 pm | |
Oh well, my flippant comment has at least persuaded me to dig out "Planxty - After the Break" which opens with the GSK song. | ||
| diane easby | Posted - 22 Sep 04 - 01:29 pm | |
Hmmmm, yes. But what about Sally being a 'mulatter'. Are there racist connotations as well as possibly dodgy sexual politics? | ||
| Jon Freeman | Posted - 22 Sep 04 - 01:42 pm | |
I must admit I'd not really given the words too much thought and took the world mulatter as a nonsense word -it's not a word I knew. I don't find it in my dictiorary (Chambers) but do find "mulatto" which is defined as "the offspring of Black person and person of a European decent". You may well have a point about other connotations... | ||
| dmcg | Posted - 22 Sep 04 - 05:05 pm | |
From This site about Jamaica
It appears that the status of 'mulatto' was comparatively high, certainly when compared with black. | ||
| Mary in Kentucky | Posted - 23 Sep 04 - 03:50 am | |
As best I remember (In James Michener's book, Texas) there were 16 different caste systems among Spanish, Indian and Black/African (in early Mexico). Here is a link which appears to verify that -- but I certainly don't understand it! As best I remember, the "highest" caste was Spanish/Spanish, but since there was often a shortage of pure Spanish people for the gene pool, other crosses were more prevalent. ;-) When I was teaching, we had to classify the numbers of various races in order to get federal funding. When we asked a supervisor how to classify a child with one white parent and one black parent -- he said to just see which group they identified ("hung out") with! | ||