Collecting the sea shanty: British maritime identity and Atlantic musical cultures in the early twentieth century

Abstract

This article explores an important phase in the survival of the sea shanty as a collected, recorded and documented musical form. The final demise of the sailing ship as an economic mode of transport in the early twentieth century inspired a plethora of books and memoirs celebrating the age of sail, and many authors focused on the sea shanty. Collectors debated the accuracy of written versions, the sanitisation of lyrics and the likely origins of particular songs, trying to establish both the ‘authentic’ shanty, and their own varied maritime qualifications for writing about it. The shanty also became important to wider debates about national identity, with its multicultural origins sitting awkwardly with the mainstream folk movement’s search for an English musical tradition.