Back to List of Songs

PULL DOWN BELOW Lead: Richard

A shanty learned from the singing of Stan Hugill. This song appears on a cassette tape titled A Salty Fore Topman, Stan Hugill with Stormalong John, possibly recorded around 1989 at the studios of BBC Radio Merseyside. Stormalong John is a Liverpool shanty group based at the Mersey Maritime Museum. They performed throughout Britain, in Brittany, Germany and Poland, and regularly accompanied Stan Hugill in concerts. Hugill says, in the liner notes of the cassette, that Pull Down Below was collected from the Maritime States [of Canada, I presume], turning up again in the West Indies after the Second World War. It has been cited as both a halyard and a towing song.

LYRICS:

I went to church and I went to chapel
Chorus: Pull down below!
I went to church and I went to chapel
Chorus: Pull down below!

Oh, Hieland laddie
Hieland laddie, bonny laddie

Out on the road I found a saddle
I found a saddle and an empty poke

Oh, Hieland laddie
Hieland laddie, bonny laddie

I found a saddle and a empty poke
But where the hell is the bleedin' moke

Oh, Hieland laddie
Hieland laddie, bonny laddie

The moke is gone and I'll go too
I'll sail away to Backaloo

Oh, Hieland laddie
Hieland laddie, bonny laddie

Oh, hoist 'er up and away we'll go
Hoist 'er up from down below

Oh, Hieland laddie
Hieland laddie, bonny laddie

Oh, give 'er sheet and let 'er go
We're outward bound to Backalow

Oh, Hieland laddie
Hieland laddie, bonny laddie

I thought I heard the Old Man say
It's one more pull and then belay

Oh, Hieland laddie
Hieland laddie, bonny laddie

The Nautical Song Circle in Victoria, BC, Canada on Vancouver Island featured a version of Pull Down Below called Eagle Alley as the July 1999 Song Of The Month:

EAGLE ALLEY

I went to church, I went to chapel
Chorus: Pull down below
I went to church, I went to chapel
Chorus: Pull down below.

Refrain [Full chorus]:
Away Eagle Alley, pull down below
Oh, Eagle Alley in the valley, pull down below

And on the road I found an apple. ...
And it's who's been here since I've been gone?...

It's a Yankee mate wid his big boots on....
And it's who's been here since I've been gone?...

It's Lime Juice mate with his cheese cutter on....
I went to church, I went to chapel....

A-way Eagle Alley, pull down below
Oh, Eagle Alley in the valley, pull down below

Oh oh, oh, away Eagle Alley, pull down below
Oh, Eagle Alley in the valley, pull down below...

Traditional. Recorded by Shanghaied On The Willamette - Jonathan Lay & Gordy Euler, on "Weighing Anchor". Collected by James Madison Carpenter who made a partial recording of "Pull Down Below" [Pull Down Below is the title of the shanty in the Madison Collection, not Eagle Alley] as sung by Reece Baldwyn in Wales in 1928.

The original field recordings of the Madison Collection were made on primitive wax cylinder recording devices. Add that to the fact that a majority of singers recorded were old men well past their singing prime and you get a lot of mumbled words. The two CD version of the Carpenter Collection that I have does not include Pull Down Below but most of the tracks are quite unintelligible. Unfortunately the compact disks did not come with a lyric sheet.