The Wrecked Ship- McDaniels (MO) 1924 Rand A
[From: Ozark Folksongs Volume 1; Randolph 1946. Notes follow by Randolph, his title.]
THE WRECKED SHIP
An Ozark version of "The Mermaid" (Child, English and, Scottish Popular Ballad. 1882-1898, No. 289). For British texts see Ebsworth (Roxburghe Ballads, VIII, 1896, p. 446), Baring-Gould (English Minstrelsie, VI, p.74), Buck (The Oxford. Song Book, 1916, p. 422).
Part of this piece has been used as a children's game, according to Gomme (Traditional Games, 1898, II, pp. 143, 422); see comment on this point by Botkin (American Play-party Song, 1937, p. 56). For American texts and references see JAFL (18: x905, p. 136; 22, 1909, p. 78), McGill (Folk-Songs of the Kentucky Mountains, 1917, p. 45), Shoemaker (North Pennsylvania Minstrelsy, 1919, p. 157), Cox (Folk-Songs of the South, 1925, p. 112). Add JAFL 25, 1912, p. 176, in which Belden reports a variant from Kirksville, Mo., where it is known as "The Shipwreck." This text, with a valuable headnote, is reprinted in Belden's Ballads and Songs (1940, pp. 101-102). "The Mermaid" appears in the forthcoming Brown (North Carolina Folk-Lore Society) collection. Chappell (Folk-Songs of Roanoke and the Albemarle, 1939, pp. 46-47) does not place this with British ballad survivals.
A. [The Wrecked Ship] Sung by Mr. Sam McDaniels, Pineville, Mo., June 7, 1924. Mr. McDaniels says that it is "an old English sailors' song," which he learned from some backwoods people near Jane, Mo.
[music upcoming]
Up stepped the captain of our gallant ship,
An' a bold young man was he,
Oh I got a wife in Plymouth town,
An' a widow I fear she will be.
Then up spoke the cabin boy of our gallant ship,
An' a pretty little boy was he,
Oh I got a wife in Porster Town,
An' a widow I fear she will be.
Then three times round went our gallant ship,
An' three times round went she,
For the want of a boat it all was lost,
An' she sank to the bottom of the sea.