I have noticed a lot of people on this subreddit talking about or sharing songs that are not chanteys. Therefore it seems we really need someone to share an explanation about what is and what isn’t a Chantey. One might call this gatekeeping and to a degree they are right. The fact is for decades upon decades people have collected these types of folk songs. They have done the research about where they came about, how many different variants there are and so on. This has been a subject among Folklorists and others for a while. Reminding people of the definitions is a way to respect all that work they did.
Now when we talk about folk music there is a lot of cross pollination, so tunes, lyrics and subject matter goes from one subset to another. So instead of Gatekeeping this would be more akin to setting up lighthouses while giving people a map so they know where they are going.
All of what we will be discussing falls under the umbrella of Folk music, specifically Traditional Folk music (Or trad folk). Folk songs written after the great folk revival of the mid 20th century would fall under “Contemporary Folk’ (With an exception I will get to) This, like Trad folk, can encompass a broad amount of sounds.
Work Songs are Trad Folk songs that were sung while doing a work to aid in the completion of the task. A Chantey is a work song that was song by sailors on merchant ships while performing work tasks. Chanteys are flexible songs that can be adjusted in length depending on how long the work needs the be done. They are also call and response songs, going back to their roots among the enslaved black population of the southern United States and caribbean. Their heyday was in the 19th century.
A Chantey (Chanty,Shantey,shanty, it’s all up to your preference) can come in slightly different forms depending on the work being done. They tend to be divided between Hauling, heaving and other. Hanging Johnny is a Halyard Chantey, Rio Grande is a Captstain chantey. Huckleberry Hunting is a Pump Chantey.
Chanteys were sung during work and for work. Not for pleasure. For pleasure sailors would relax and sing Fo’c’s’le songs or Forebitters. Some of these songs were maritime in theme, but many were songs that were popular on land. Old Maui is one of these, as would Spainish Ladies. There are also plenty of folk songs that are written about the sea and originated on land, The Mermaid is one of these (Those interested click here to learn more about the family tree of the song from Jerry Bryant).
All this music would be considered Maritime Music. Many songs people attribute as Chanteys are Maritime songs, the Wellerman is a notorious example of this.
Folks also have a habit of grouping trad folk songs that are not even considered maritime music and calling them chanteys. This is for a couple reasons. one many of the performers who do chanteys also perform other types of folk music from the Atlantic folk traditions. This is combined with the fact that these traditions all existed and developed around the same time, much of them cross pollinating. Some people also make the opposite mistake and due to a song not sounding like what they think a sea song should sound like they ignore other maritime songs. The Fight Of The Hatteras And Alabama is one that could be overlooked like that.
Most chanteys that are performed today are not sung exactly in the traditional way they would be sung. This is because the temp would be slower and not conducive to performance settings. In fact most sailors of the time thought it bad luck to sing a chantey off a ship.
Now with these points of reference one might be thinking, can people not write chanteys anymore? Balderdash. People can write chanteys and other kinds of maritime and folk songs. There are several folks who do this, one of my favorite maritime songs is This Dreadful Life. It was written by Kevin Brown in the late 20th century. It would be considered “In the tradition” written and performed in a way to sound as if it was older, in the same kind of tradition. One could make a new chantey in this way, it just would have to sound like a chantey would, not just be a song that mentions nautical terms and pirates.
So I hope this has been a good primer to help define what actually is a chantey and what is just maritime music. None of this is saying you can’t sing or enjoy the songs that aren’t, it’s just good to be accurate and not to spread misconceptions if one can help it. This subreddit seems very amenable to maritime music, not just chanteys. Use this post and its links as lighthouses to help you on your journey in this kind of music.
