| Author | Topic: Add: Fire Down Below | |
| dmcg | Posted - 10 Feb 07 - 10:44 am | |
Fire in the galley, fire down below; It's fetch a bucket of water girls, There's fire down below. (Chorus:) Fire, fire, fire down below, It's fetch a bucket of water girls, There's fire down below. Source: Singing Together, Summer 1951, BBC Publications Roud Number:813 Notes: From "The Shanty Book", Part II, J Curwen and Sons Ltd. The Roud Index entry indicates the editor of this might be Terry. | ||
| dmcg | Posted - 10 Feb 07 - 10:52 am | |
All shanties vary a great deal in their verses, and the version I learnt at school is similar to this, but not quite the same. This is Roud 813; Other Roud 813 entires have first lines like "A simple village maiden with red and rosy cheeks" and are also from shanty books. This suggests this might be one of the cases where a shanty has both clean and bawdy verses with appropriate selections being made as it is sung. Certainly, I can see interpretions of the phrases "Fire Down Below" which did not occur to me as an eight year old! | ||