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BILLY O'SHEA

I first heard about this shanty on the Mudcat Café Forum. Click on the thread below to see the discussion.

Billy O'Shea thread

As described in the thread, East Coast singer Dan Milner only had the first verse of Billy O'Shea and recorded a version of it fleshing it out with standard "floating" shanty verses. Full versions of this shanty did turn up. One of them was recorded by the Whigamaleeries on their cassette Tall Ships, sung by Pete MacNab, and English singer Graeme Knights was kind enough to provide me with the melody and lyrics he had for the song (Billy O'Shea is on his newly released album Echo from Afar). As it turned out I liked the melody used by Dan Milner better but the lyrics I sing are compiled from all the versions I found. According to Pete MacNab's post in the thread on Billy O'Shea shown above there was originally no full chorus. By the way, I highly recommend Graeme Knight's recording Echo from Afar. In addition to some great singing by Graeme the album features a stellar chorus that includes Johnny Collins, Dave Webber and Anni Fentiman, among others.

LYRICS:

BILLY O'SHEA

Oh, we all got drunk in Dublin City
Chorus: Fall down, me Billy
We all got drunk and oh, what a pity
Chorus: Fall down, Billy O'Shea

Full Chorus: Fall down, fall down Fall down, me Billy We're bound away for Americay Fall down, Billy O'Shea We all got drunk on the Rogerson's quay And when we awoke we were all at sea Oh, we're not sailors, Captain Drew And a bit unhappy to work for you The Captain said, "I've a cure for that" "And here for a start is a dose of the cat" He sent him up to the top mast yard When he hit the deck, well, he hit it hard We wrapped him up in a canvas sail And we lowered him gently o'er the rail

Over the side and down he goes
He's gone to Davy Jones with a stitch through his nose

Farewell, farewell, farewell, me Billy
For I am bound for Americay