Fisherman’s Friends stage musical rides a weird wave of sea shanty popularity

In his book Ballads and Sea Songs from Nova Scotia, W. Roy MacKenzie described seas shanties as an “obsolete ritual.” That was in 1909. But now the saltwater song type is back. Because of a lonely Scotsman who triggered a social media meme amongst young audiences, the shanties’ ship has are available in.

A 12 months ago, Glasgow-area musician Nathan Evans posted a TikTok video of himself stoically singing the whaling ballad Soon May the Wellerman Come. It struck a chord with a bored generation locked down throughout the pandemic. Evans himself told The Recent York Times that TikTok relieved his sense of claustrophobia.

The video was shared, remixed and duetted enthusiastically online, and “ShantyTok” was born. The Trailer Park Boys, fictional Nova Scotians, even responded with the sound-alike parody, The Kittyman Sea Shanty: “There once was a cat with a hungry belly/The name of the cat was Whiskers Jelly.” The viral phenomenon of something so esoteric and long obsolete was, after all, soaked in additional irony than it was in rum or grog. Or was it?

On merchant marine vessels within the 1700s and 1800s, shanties were used as a rhythmic tool to assist sailors work in unison. The various sorts of onboard chores would have different songs attached to them. “But then they began spicing them up with profane lyrics or funny lyrics or lyrics about their captains,” says Jon Cleave, a member of coastal England folk music singers the Fisherman’s Friends. “The lads on the ships were singing about common experiences, and to sing about them while performing tasks would have kept their spirits up.”

So shanties uplift and help pass the time. Who greater than a locked down society during a seemingly infinite pandemic can be in need of some old-timey yo ho ho?

And now, with the pandemic waning and the golden age of sailing long passed, shanties raise spirits still: Cleave and the remainder of his Cornish sea-song specialists are coming to a stage near you. The Fisherman’s Friends formed in 1995 and are signed to Universal Music. Their feel-good life story inspired a self-titled 2019 British dramedy, which in turn spawned Fisherman’s Friends: The Musical, which lands at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre this weekend for a scheduled seven-week run. The sequel film Fisherman’s Friends: One and All was released in Canada last week.

In accordance with Cleave, fans of the group range from children to pensioners, with no age gaps in between. It’s possible that the closest most of them have come to the seafaring life is the all-you-can-eat shrimp at Red Lobster. Cleave believes the shanty’s appeal to landlubbers is predicated in an oral tradition.

“The songs are accessible,” he says from Port Isaac, population 721. “They’ve not been written, they don’t have any complexities and anyone can join into them. There’s an important democracy to them.”

Getting deeper into socio-physiological shanty impulse, Cleave points to comradery and a way of lineage. “There’s plenty of discuss community lately. It’s a little bit of a disappearing thing, but in smaller places we do manage to maintain hold of it. I believe other people can relate to it and need to feel they’re a part of it.”

Feel a part of it – as in literally joining into the call-and-response singing, whether in a pub or at a Fisherman’s Friends concert. “Possibly they try this since the words and tunes were things their very own ancestors would have sung,” Cleaves says. “There’s a way of reaching back in time.”

Indeed, probably the most streamed track by the Fisherman’s Friends on Spotify is Shantyman, a recent song written by Bob Watson that despairs modern ships and laments the lost role of the sailor who sings the essential line of a sea shanty: “Sing you a song of a world gone flawed, after they got no use for a shantyman.”

A shanty revival did not occur in 2006, when well-known artists and actors including Sting, Bono and John C. Reilly contributed tracks to the Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys compilation produced by Hal Wilner. A follow-up album featuring such pirate types as Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Courtney Love, Keith Richards, Angelica Huston and Johnny Depp was released in 2013.

The shanty oil lamp was long carried in Canada by platinum-selling Newfoundland folk-rockers Great Big Sea, who released nine studio albums before disbanding. Former members Alan Doyle and Sean McCann each have thriving solo careers. Well-known homegrown recordings within the genre include Leave Her, Johnny, Leave Her by Stan Rogers and Drunken Sailor by the Irish Rovers.

And while 2021 finally made shanties popular again, it’s not the primary time they’ve gone viral. When working ships sailed the world, they stopped at ports where crews were modified and sea songs were exposed to latest people. “The identical way TikTok exposed shanties throughout the pandemic,” Cleaves says. “it could have taken 4 or five years for a song to get around the globe, but they got there eventually.”

Fisherman’s Friends: The Musical runs from Nov. 27 to Jan. 15 at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre. Information at mirvish.com.