Sea shanties and ale a shore thing
FEBRUARY 6, 2019
A community of Sydney drinkers have turned mundane Monday nights into an ocean of fun by NICHOLAS ADAMS-DZIERZBA
To make Australia’s old endeavours great again, the federal government will fork out $6.7 million to mark our maritime history.
Scott Morrison has announced that the Australian National Maritime Museum’s replica of Captain James Cook’s ship the Endeavour will circumnavigate our continent.
A more frequent celebration in Sydney occurs weekly in a nautically themed bar. Each Monday, dozens of people meet to sing shanties that evoke Australia’s seafaring history.
Redfern Shanty Club members don’t yearn to be aboard the First Fleet, a pirate pursuing plunder, or a whaler chasing Moby-Dick. Camaraderie brings them back.
It’s not a performance to watch on a stage. You are expected to join in while standing in a circle the right note is irrelevant in a pub choir. As he welcomes and encourages passers-by, organiser Robert Boddington’s booming voice sounds like it belongs to a much older, portlier man.
Traditionally, shanties are songs sailors would sing to keep in time at sea. “Sea shanties are strictly vocational-style in regards to their origin,” says Boddington, 26.
“They often have a call and response, a really rousing chorus, and they’re very simple.”
One person will lead the song by singing the verses, and teach the chorus using “twosies” — sing- ing two sentences at a time.
Before you know it you’re joining in and singing refrains such as: “Heave haul away / haul away Joe / heave ho haul away we’ll sail for better weather / heave haul away / we’ll haul away Joe.’’
Only one of the attendees has anything on a CV resembling a life on the seas — she worked as a deckhand on Sydney Ferries.
The group is skewed young, with a few old-timers glad the scene is being reinvigorated.
Retiree Margaret Walters, 75, likes the vibrant younger crowd.
“I’ve been singing sea shanties for over 30 years, and it was just such fun to find people under 30 singing it,” she says.
Student Sarah Willing, 23, leads the song The Whale: “So bend your backs and row me lads and take me to the whale / tonight we’ll sing and dance and tomorrow night we’ll sail / we’ll sail into the har- bour no prouder men there’ll be / we’ll show them all we’ve captured the monster from the sea.”
Willing’s uncles taught her the song as a child. She says she enjoys the camaraderie but isn’t transported to the deck of the Pequod, hunting the white whale with Captain Ahab, in Moby-Dick.
“I love it. It’s something that elevates my feelings for the rest of the week. Monday is actually possibly my favourite day of the week because of this space. Because I can just be free and let go,” she says.
The night ends in a huddle that borders on an embrace.
“The shanty onion is what we call it ... it’s also a really nice opportunity for people to kind of realise how everyone else sings, around them,” Boddington says. “They’re singing alone and then all of a sudden they’re in a massive group ... (and) bid adieu to the night.”