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FIRE DOWN BELOW Lead: Richard

A capstan chantey collected by Professor James M. Carpenter in the 1920s from Welsh seaman William Fender of Barry Docks who served at sea from 1878 to 1900.

LYRICS:

I thought I heard our old man say

Chorus:
Fire down below-oh-oh-oh-ohh, boys
Fire down below

You can go ashore and get your pay

But I don't care what the captain say

Cause two pound ten won't pay me way

I'll run away at the break of day

Because I can no longer stay

I'll go to my girl round Frisco Bay

I know very well it's with me she will stay

Because she know I have twelve month pay

And we'll go down to the Midway Plaisances

To see the pretty girls do the hoochy-coochee dances

NOTES:

A capstan shanty collected by Professor James M. Carpenter in the 1920s from Welsh seaman William Fender of Barry Docks who served at sea from 1878 to 1900. First recorded by Bob Walser on the album When Our Ship Comes Home.

In the original version collected by Carpenter the last solo line read "To see the pretty girls do the hula-hula dances." I changed "hula-hula dances" to "hoochy-choochee dances" after East Coast shanty singer Charlie Ipcar pointed us to a section of Herbert Asbury's book The Barbary Coast (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, 1988). Asbury notes that there was a music hall called the Midway Plaisance located just outside the infamous Barbary Coast district on Market Street between 3rd and 4th streets in San Francisco between the late 1890s and early 1900s.

"The first melodeon or music hall in San Francisco to make a special feature of hoochy-coochee dancers, or, as the theatrical weekly Variety calls them, 'torso-tossers and hip-wavers.' Some of the most noted cooch artists of the day appeared at the Midway Plaisance, among them the Girl in Blue and the original Little Egypt, who first danced in San Francisco in 1897, a few years after her triumphs in the Streets of Cairo Show at the first Chicago World's Fair. The admission charge at the Midway Plaisance was ten cents, slightly lower than at the Bella Union (its older rival), and it was tougher in every way; its shows were bawdier, and virtue among its female entertainers was considered very detrimental to the best interests of the establishment. Like practically all of the other melodeons, it had a mezzanine floor cut up into booths, before which hung heavy curtains. A visitor who engaged a booth for the evening was entertained between acts by the female performers and his conduct was not questioned so long as he continued to buy liquor." (pp. 131-132)