The Liverpool Pilot (Lehr and Best)

#02276

The Liverpool Pilot (Lehr & Best)

O Liverpool, England, is a place I love dear,
I spent all me money on whiskey and beer.
I spent all my money - what could I do more?
I was forced to take ship and go sail for the shore.
And it's row, row, row, bullies, row,
For the Liverpool Pilot she have us in tow.

It's early next morning we were out for a start -
We packed all our duds in the old baggage cart;
And straight to the landlord to get a last glass,
And on board of a ship us poor sailors was cast.
And it's row, row, row, bullies, row,
For the Liverpool Pilot she have us in tow.

One day as our ship she was calm on her line,
Our captain was cursing 'cause he had no wine:
'Set tight sheets and halyards, let none of them slack
For they're flying aloft from her main topsail deck.'
And it's row, row, row, bullies, row,
For the Liverpool Pilot she have us in tow.

Our mate and our bos'un all day going through -
Just looking for work for our sailors to do.
'Unreeve your jib halyards,' he loudly did roar -
It's 'Go aloft, sailor, you son of a whore.'
And it's row, row, row, bullies, row,
For the Liverpool Pilot she have us in tow.

Rounding Cape Heaney I'll never forget -,
Each time I looks back and I thinks on it yet;
With the boats driving under and her sailors all wet,
And she ranged twelve an hour
with her stern lines sot tight.
And it's row, row, row, bullies, row,
For the Liverpool Pilot she have us in tow.

O now we are out and for home we do steer -
Our wives and our families and the ones we love dear.
Drink a health to our captain and pilot as well
But our old mate and bos'un, I wish them in hell!
And it's row, row, row, bullies, row,
For the Liverpool Pilot she have us in tow.

####.... Author unknown. Traditional Newfoundland song ....####

Collected by Genevieve Lehr and Anita Best in 1978 from Phillip Pius Power, Sr [1912-1993] of South East Bight, NL, and published as #67 in Come And I Will Sing You: A Newfoundland Songbook, pp.117-118, edited by Genevieve Lehr (University of Toronto Press © 1985/2003).

Genevieve Lehr noted that Mr Power described this as a heave-up shanty that he learned from Doug Haynes of Prowston, NL.

See more songs by Lehr and Best

The editors at the California State University Fresno Folklore Ballad Index consider this song a perhaps slightly adapted version of The Liverpool Judies with too many similarities to index as a different song.

Notes:
¹ The Liverpool Pilot Service was established with the Liverpool Pilotage Act of 1766, which required a pilot on all vessels in the Mersey, and still continues today.
² GEST notes that the word 'sot' appears several times in the Dictionary Of Newfoundland English, usually within quotations which serve as examples of usage for defined words. The word itself is obscurely defined on page two of the Introduction to the Dictionary. It is used in this song as the past tense of the verb 'set' spoken with a Newfoundland dialect.

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