Neil Colquhoun

The collecting work of Neil Colquhoun (b.1929 - d.2014) was spread over a number of years, and he used a number of methods. But unlike Rona Bailey, he did not conduct dedicated field trips or do archival researching.

However,shortly after the 1957 folk festival, he inquired through the Schillinger Institute in New York whether any American composers might know of songs that nineteenth century American whalemen had sung while hunting in New Zealand waters.

Note that he did not ask for songs that referred to whaling in New Zealand waters.

Several months later Colquhoun received a letter containing six songs from John Leebrick, an elderly composer in the United States.

Blood Red Roses

Colquhoun was a specialist music educator, folk performer, arranger and composer for stage, theatre and song, and well placed to add to the songs already collected.

In his introduction to the revised 1972 edition, he described it not as an authentic academic collection, but as being simply a songbook for singing through. He made no apologies for modernising sources, if it has made for better singing or understanding, and for following the lead of renowned American folklorist Alan Lomax in filling in gaps with his own words and music.

Leebrick’s six songs

When Colquhoun forwarded the six songs to Bailey and Roth for inclusion in "Shanties by the Way" (1967) they noticeably included only the first three of the songs.

1. Come All You Tonguers

Come all you tonguers^# and land-loving lubbers
Here's a job cutting-in, and boiling down blubbers
A job for the youngster or old and ailing
The agent will grab any man for shore whaling

    I am paid in soap and  sugar and rum
    For cutting in whale and boiling down tongue^##
    The  agent's fee makes my blood so to boil!
    I'll push! him in a hot pot of oil.

# "Newspapers or printed matter of any kind were a rarity and a treasure in the New Zealand of that day which could not yet boast a printing press, and was still entirely in the hands of the Maoris, leavened by a scattering of bay whalers, 'tonguers,' Pakeha Maoris, and a few missionaries in the north, a long way from Port Underwood." (Source 1919)

 "Tonguers were men who followed the whalers to 'trying-out' grounds and made a meagre living by scraping the bones and rendering down the portions of the whales discarded by the ships. (Source 1923)
 
## Blankets (not tongues) of blubber were cut from the whales.

2. New Zealand Whales

The lyrics probably originated on the Sydney waterfront after Loweriston sued the owners of the 'Active' for abandoning his group.

Sydney newspapers regularly published topical poems, and sailors’ compositions were often written down in ship’s logbooks. A return of Loweriston and his crew, and the subsequent court case would have caused a sensation. But no such contemporary printed or written copies have been found.

And a contemporary composition would have got the facts right. They left Sydney harbour in 1809 but the Leebrick lyrics published by Bailey and Roth in 1967 say that ”Twas in 1810 we set sail.”

Also the song misses out some details about the stranded men's boat-building efforts and wrongly infers that some of them died.

Leebrick died soon after he sent his document to Colquhoun, and none of Colquhoun’s collection of documents have been made accessible to others.

4. Blood Red Roses
This song had evolved from the words of a courting dance of young Caribbean couples.

Annie, Annie, coming down         with a bunch of roses, coming down         You walk in style coming down         With a bunch of roses, coming down         Lift up you' clotheses, comin' down         Right up to you' noses, comin' down         Comin' down with you' bunch o'roses.

5. Shore Cry

The opening line is taken from this 1780s Dublin execution ballad.  
The Night Before Larry Was Stretched. So these verses were probably composed by an Irishman.

        Then raising a little his head,
        To get a sweet drop of the bottle,
        “I’m very, very well,” says he,
        I’m glad for to tell ye, me jewel;
        I fear neither judge nor jailer,

6. Whaling Off Greenland

It was eighteen hundred and thirty-four,
On March the seventeenth day,
That we hoist our colours to the top of the tree
And for Greenland bore away, brave boys,
For Greenland bore away
. . . . . .

Well, the harpoon struck, and down went the whale
With a flourish of his tail.
And by chance we lost two men overboard.
No more Greenland for you, brave boys,
And we never caught that whale.
. . . . . .

O that Greenland is a dreadful place,
No longer can we stay.
Now the cold winds blow and the whales do go
And it’s seldom ever day, brave boys,
It’s seldom ever day.  (Mainly Norfolk)

There were many versions of this whaling ballad, composed in England in the mid 1830s, and it probably was sung on English whaling ships here in the late 1830s, and it was possibly learnt by American  sailors, and there is is slim possibility it was written down by an American whaling captain. But it is NOT associated with any whaling event in NZ.

   
      Conclusion
                    Not associated with whaling in New Zealand. 

---

  7. Soon May the Wellerman Come

This gem of a song was first heard in 1972 on the LP "Song of a Young Country" as a track sung by Tommy Wood.

(a) The Words of the  first five verses.

Mike Harding later spoke to Tommy Wood about it, who remembered,

"I came across the poem in a book on NZ sailors. Unfortunately I have not got the book anymore. All I can remember was stories connected to whaling, exploring NZ and immigration ships, containing personal letters of life on board these ships, including poems... black and white sketches of ships, sailors etc. The Wellerman was an actual poem in the book but not quite in rhyme so I had to adjust some of the words."

Alas, this 1916 Yankee whaling book is not the one Tommy Wood found, but it does give us a couple of leads to it.

          

 

You may be able to find Tommy's book by searching in archive.org/details/books and in Google Books.

There are dozens of English and Appalachian variants of the early 17th century Golden Trinity, about Sir Walter Raleigh. This is the oldest.

     Sir Walter Rawleigh has built a ship, in the Neather-lands
      And it is called The Sweet Trinity,

      And was taken by the false gallaly, Sailing in the Low-lands.
    
      Is there never a seaman bold in the Neather-lands
      That will go take this false gallaly,
      And to redeem The Sweet Trinity? Sailing in the Low-lands . . .

Then with a better rhythm

        There was a gallant ship, and a gallant ship was she
        Eck iddle du, and the Lowlands low
        And she was called The Goulden Vanitie.
        As she sailed to the Lowlands low
       
        She had not sailed a league, a league but only three, Eck, etc.
        When she came up with a French gallee. As she sailed etc.

And next, more concisely

    
        ‘I have a ship in the North Countrie,
        And she goes by the name of the The Golden Vanity;
        I’m afraid she will be taken by some Turkish gallee,
        As she sails on the Low Lands Low.’      (Sacred Texts)

Yankee whalers presumably sang this Appelachian variant.

Well, there once was a ship on the northern sea
and the name of the ship was the 'Green Willow Tree'
And we sailed in the lowlands, lies so low
We sailed in the lowland O

She wasn't on the sea more than a week or three
When she was overtaken by the Turkish Revillie
And we sailed in the lowlands, lies so low
We sailed in the lowland O

Elsewhere in this book, A Hyatt Verrill tells us that

"Of all amusements or recreations, other than shore-leave, the whalers looked forward with the greatest anticipation to visit another ship and whenever two vessels met at sea. The forecastles and cabins rang with laughter, the decks resounded to the shuffle and patter of dancing feet and lusty lungs roared forth the whalemen's songs. Many of these songs of the whalemen were very descriptive of their lives, their experiences and their hardships. . ."

Many whaling ships were sunk and hundreds of whaleboats were smashed to smithereens by whales. Mocha Dick was an old bull whale, "of prodigious size and strength and white that was first attacked by whale boats sometime before 1810 near Mocha Island off the coast of Chile. His unusual appearance, and ability to survive about a hundred whalers' attacks quickly made him famous.

He was quite docile, but once attacked he retaliated with ferocity and cunning, sinking 20 whaling ships and dozens of whaleboats. He would sound and then breach so aggressively that his entire body would sometimes come completely out of the water. The case of the Nantucket whaler Essex is often quoted.

"He was seen at a distance of several hundred yards coming full speed for the ship. Diving, he rose again to the surface about a ship's length away, and then surged forward on the surface striking the vessel just forward of the fore chains. The ship brought up suddenly and violently as if she had struck a rock, and trembled like a leaf. Then she began to settle down but not quick enough for the whale. Circling, he again bore down upon the Essex. This time his head fairly stove the bows in, and the crew had barely time to provision and launch the boats. Twelve of the crew lost their lives, five only were rescued." (The Nautical Magazine 1908)

Actually, the Essex was 80ft long and weighed 240 tons; Mocha Dick was 70ft long and weighed about 90 tons.

A forecastle singer had no doubt heard the stories about Mocha Dick and and other bull whales, and he changed the attack of Golden Vanity by Barbary pirates to an attack of a whaling ship by Mocha Dick, and then a counterattack by the crew that turned into a tall story about an endless stalemate.

(b) The words of the last verse

As far as I've heard, the fight's still on;
The line's not cut and the whale's not gone.
The Wellerman makes his regular call
To encourage the Captain, crew, and all.

This is a nonsense verse because cases of stores and barrels of whale-oil cannot be exchanged between ships on the rough seas of the Southern Ocean, with one ship attached to an unstoppable whale.

The Wellers' ships only exchanged stores and whale-oil in sheltered New Zealand harbours.

(b) The words of the chorus

        One day when the tonguing is done

We'll take our leave and go.

A 19th century chantyman would not have composed this verse. Crews on US whaling ships did the flensing of the whale's skin, and boiling-down of the blubber (over an open fire on a wooden ship loaded with wooden barrels containing several hundred tons of inflammable oil !!!!!) The strips of skin with fatty layer beneath that were flensed off the whale's carcass were called blankets.

The more cautious British whalers took their blankets of blubber to the shore and did their boiling-down there. The shore-based scavengers who came after the whalers had gone and who fought the rats for the scraps of blubber and muscle fat the whalers had left behind, including the thin layer of fat on the whale's tongue, were called tonguers. Presumably their work could have called tonguing.

(c) The tune.

Wood may have sung the verses with the original Golden Vanity tune, and with a repetitive chorus. Then in June 1971 the BBC children's series 'Follyfoot' came out with a theme song that got much radio play. It had a  tune for each verse similar to  the one used to sing Green Willow Tree, plus a very catchy, rousing chorus.

Down in the meadow where the wind blows free
In the middle of a field stands a lightning tree
It's limbs all torn from the day it was born
For the tree was born in a thunderstorm.

Grow, grow, the lightning tree
It's never too late for you and me
Grow, grow, the lightning tree
Never give in too easily.

Wood's whale verses fitted the tune for the lightning tree verses perfectly, but more lines were needed for the chorus. My guess is that Colquhoun composed the Wellerman chorus lines and the 6th verse, to associate the Billy of Tea song with New Zealand.

Of course it is a nonsense chorus because cases of stores and barrels of whale-oil cannot be exchanged between ships on the rough seas of the Southern Ocean, with one ship attached to an unstoppable whale. The Wellers' ships only exchanged stores and whale-oil in sheltered New Zealand harbours.

In June 1972 AH & AW Reed published the 2^nd edition of Neil Colquhoun's wonderfully produced NZ songbook and LP 'Song of a Young Country' which was the same as his cyclostyled first edition published in 1965, plus the Wellerman lyrics and the Lightning Tree score. The Tommy Wood recording is from about the same time.

 
  Conclusion

   1630s - Sir Walter Raleigh Sailing in the Lowlands on the Sweet
   Trinity is attacked  by a "false  gallaly," or Barbary coast pirate
   ship. Then Sweet Trinity becomes Sweet Kermadee, then the
   Golden Vanity.

   On a USA whaling ship, the false gallaly/French galley/Turkish
   revillee attacking the ship becomes Mocha Dick, a 'right whale.'

  
   1960s - Tommy Wood finds the 'right whale' lyrics in an old

   whaling book, and sings it in Auckland folk clubs.

  
   Winter 1971 - "The Lightning Tree," a bouncy song of survival
   after a mortal attack, and with the tune for its verse similar to
   The Golden Vanity, becomes popular. Tommy Wood sings his
   right whale verses to it.

    Spring/Summer 1971-72 - Colquhoun uses the tune of the
    chorus of Lightning Tree to composes a Wellerman
    chorus and last verse  for Wood's 'right whale' verses.

   
    Autumn 1972 - writing in his Song of a Young Nation songbook, 

    Colquhoun pretended he collected the song from the singing of
    a fictitious W. R. Woods.

APPENDIX 1.

The China song is a modified version of this 1812 Scottish song.

The Bonny Ship the Diamond                          The Diamond is a ship, my lads, for the Davis Strait she’s bound, And the quay it is all garnished with bonny lasses ’round. Captain Thompson gives the order to sail the ocean wide, Where the sun it never sets, my lads, no darkness dims the sky. Chorus And it’s cheer up my lads, let your hearts never fail, For the bonny ship, the Diamond, goes a-fishing for the whale. Along the quays of Peterhead, the lasses stand around, Their shawls all pulled about them and the salt tears running down. Now don’t you weep, my bonny lass, though you be left behind, For the rose will bloom on Greenland’s ice before we change our mind. Chorus Here’s health to the Resolution, likewise the Eliza Swan, Here’s a health to the Battler of Montrose and the Diamond, ship of fame. We wear the trousers of the white, the jackets of the blue, When we return to Peterhead, we’ll have sweethearts anoo.         Chorus Oh, it will be bright both day and night when the whaling lads come home, In a ship that’s full of oil, my boys, and money to our name. We’ll make the cradles all to rock and the blankets for to tear, And every lass in Peterhead sing, “Hushabye, my dear.”         Chorus The Diamond was built in Québec in 1801 and brought into the Aberdeen fleet in 1812. The Aberdeen Journal of 18 March 1812 reports: “The fine new ship Diamond, Gibbon [ie, with Captain Gibbon in command] sailed on Thursday last, for the Davis’ Straits Whale Fishery.” When she arrived back in August she had a catch of eleven fish. The ship went on a yearly voyage until 1819 when she was caught in the early autumn ice and lost while staying too late in the season. Fortunately the crew were all saved.

  
2.  Saturday Night at Sea
                 George E. Mills, 1843