By Jack Forbes

I head Jack sing this at the Hoy at Anchor folk club in Leigh on Sea, Essex. It reflects the workings of modern container shipping in the Thames estuary. OCL is the ‘Overseas Container Line’ and a TEU is a ‘Twenty foot Equivalent Unit’ – a container. Thanks, Jack, for a great song!

1. I once was a rigger and I worked like Hell
   Rollin’ up, rollin’ down
   But now I’m a sailor with the OCL
   Rollin’ down the river.

   Chorus
   Rollin’ up, rollin’ down
   We’ll all get drunk in Tilbury town
   In twenty-four hours we’ll turn around and go
   Rollin’ down the river.

2. The cargo comes in TEUs
   That’s a twenty-foot box, boys, full of booze.
3. When first I saw a TEU
   I wondered where they put the crew.
4. There’s a Tilbury girl called Kettle Jane
   First she’s on the boil then she’s off again.
5. She’s got a friend called Teapot Ann
   When she’s well brewed she’ll take a man to go . . .
6. The Tilbury girls go round in pairs
   You’ll never catch them unawares.
7. But at the dockyard gate when the work is done
   You can pick ‘em up, boys, one by one and go . . .

From John Henry Epps, Nathanial Wellman, Jess Allen and Chrlie Rutledge in Tampa, Florida

Epps, Wellman, Allen and Rutledge were longshoremen for the Ball Steamship Company. They were recorded in 1944 in Tampa, Florida by John Becker and Alan Lomax. The original recording is held by the Archive of Folk Culture at the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, AFS 7092 A1.

1. Way down on the Mobile Bay
   Way, hey, hey
   Way down on the Mobile Bay
   So long, so long.
2. Well the captain and the mate got trouble in mind
   ‘Cause he got drunk couldn’t make no sound.
3. Way down on the Mobile Bay
   Way down on the Mobile Bay.
4. Well a bully mate and a header, too
   Well I can’t put up with a lazy crew.
5. Goin’ away gonna come no more
   Goin’ away gonna come no more.
6. Goin’ back to the Mobile Bay
   Goin’ back to the Mobile Bay.
7. Way down on the Mobile Bay
   Way down on the Mobile Bay.

From the crew of The Boys of Mayport Florida

The recording from which this derives was made at sea by Robert Cornwall and Robert Cook on July 2nd, 1941. It is held at the Archive of Folk Culture at the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, AFS 3891. Notes in the AFC file include the following:

While the song was being sung the men were “hardnin’ up the nets” that is, they were standing in the two purseboats which formed a triangle against the side of the ship and were pulling the fish-laden net to the surface of the ocean. The first line of each verse was sung by a single man and the entire crew took up the chorus. The men were silent during the interval of pulling the net. The song continued each time they paused to get a new grip on the net.

1. Them Johnson girls is mighty fine girls
   Walk around, honey, walk around
   Them Johnson girls is mighty fine girls
   Walk around, honey, walk around.
2. They’re neat in the waist and got mighty fine legs
   Neat in the waist and got mighty fine legs.
3. Great big legs and teeny-eensy feet
   Great big legs and teeny-eensy feet.
4. Beef steak, beef steak, make a little gravy
   Your thing, my thing, make a little baby.
5. They got somethin’ over yonder they call jewmaka jam
   Hot as cayenne but good, God Damn.
6. Them Johnson girls is mighty fine girls
   Them Johnson girls is mighty fine girls.

By Larry Kaplan

1. We set our traps in the bitter cold
   It was the third day of the year
   There were three of us then, we were the youngest of ten
   Two for lines and one for gear
   When it blows northeast on the Georges Bank
   You don’t like to take your time
   But the engine was old, she didn’t like the cold
   And we fell back on our line.

   Chorus
   Get her into shore, she can’t take it anymore
   She’s too far from home it’s gonna break her bones
   Can’t you get her into shore.

2. Jack throws the switch he says, The old sonofabitch
   What the Hell do you think you’re doing
   You brought us to the poor house too many times
   You ain’t takin’ us to our ruin
   But the line went slack we felt the stern turn back
   And she started up again
   But she just tightened up and I knew we were stuck
   Lyin’ broadside to the wind.
3. Tom put the helm over to run with the tide
   But she fell into the trough
   And with her side to the swell she leaned in and fell
   And I knew we all were lost
   And I that I saw was her rotten old keel
   With that rope flung across her stern
   And I couldn’t hold to her, and I couldn’t go down
   I just wished I’d never been born.
4. Now the tide runs hard in the wintertime
   You’re a fool to go and try
   God bless the poor man who was born on the sea
   God save the poor men, who die.

By Paul Kaplan, used by permission

1. Well now Henry was an accountant
   He worked with a pencil and a pad
   If you had somethin’ that you needed figured out
   Henry the Accountant was your man, Lord, Lord
   Henry the Accountant was your man.
2. Now when Henry was a little baby
   Sittin’ on his daddy’s knee
   He picked up a pencil and a little piece of paper
   He said, Two plus one equals three.
3. Well now the man who bought the first calculator
   He thought he was real fine
   He walked up to Henry with a sneer on his lips
   Sayin, Your job is gonna be mine.
4. Well now Henry stood up and drew his weapon
   He said, A man isn’t nothin’ but a man
   He said, We’ll have ourselves a race and I’ll put you in your place
   Or I’ll die with my pencil in my hand.
5. Then they each grabbed a fifty-pound ledger
   And Henry went to work with all his might
   And though his hand was startin’ to cramp, and his shirt was gettin’ damp
   He swore he would not give up the fight.
6. They were three long hours in the battle
   And the man with the machine pulled out ahead
   He had old Henry beat, ’til on the final sheet
   Suddenly his batteries went dead.
7. Now Henry he beat that calculator
   And his power could not be denied
   But the terrible strain had been too much for his brain
   So he lay down his glasses and he died.
8. Well they buried Henry in the graveyard
   They buried him with his pencil and his pad
   Now when their checks don’t clear
   They always shed a tear
   For the last human being who could add!

By Larry Kaplan, used by permission

1. I’m not tired of the wind, I’m not weary of the sea
   But she’s probably had a bellyful of a damned old coot like me
   I’m goin’ ashore, she’s bound for better days
   But I’ll see her topsails flyin’ as I come down off the waves, oh

   Chorus
   Rosie get my Sunday shoes, Gertie get my walkin’ cane
   We’ll take another walk to see old Alice sail again.

2. Wish I had a nickel for the men I used to know
   Who could load three cords of lumber in a half an hour or so
   Who could put up sail by haulin’, ‘stead of donkeyin’ around
   Then I’d be the poorest coaster man, this side of Edgartown.
3. Any fool can run an engine, it takes brains to work a sail
   Never seen no steamer make much good out of a gale
   You can go an pay your taxes on the rationed gas you get
   But at least to me, the wind is free and they haven’t run out yet.
4. If I ever get back to her, you know I’d treat her just the same
   Jibe her when I want to, sail in the freezing rain
   Park old Alice on the beach and go dancin’ in the town
   ‘Cause a man who’s fit for hangin’ probably never will get drowned.

From the singing of Angus Russell

1. Who’s the king of the fighting Dutch
   Skipper Jan Rebek
   And who do the sailors fear so much
   Skipper Jan Rebek.

   Chorus
   Ja, ja leave your hammocks
   Ja, ja, hands on deck!
   Ja, ja break your backs for
   Skipper Jan Rebek.

2. Who was it brought all the tea from China
   And sold it all in Carolina?
3. And who can drink his weight in beer
   And who takes three baths every year?
4. And who can furl the main topsail
   All by himself in a living gale?
5. Who sleeps with four girls every night
   One black, one yellow, one red, one white?
6. And who is the king of the fighting Dutch
   And who do the sailors fear so much?