Drei Segelmann

Lowry refers to the song in his novel Ultramarine when Dana and Popplereuter are on their drunken drift around Dairen sing several songs including Drei Segelmann; We sang. We sang Drei Segelmann, which I don't know, but I joined in the chorus. We sang Mademoiselle from Armentières, Deutschland uber Alles, and Lisa; For He's A Jolly Good Fellow, and God Save The King; Lisa again, and The Bastard King of England, with which Popplereuter was unfamiliar..." (Pg. 89). Lowry later refers to the song in the 1940 Under The Volcano; "He began to sing: "Drei Segelmann, drei Segelmann ( Pg 368).

Lowry's memory of the song probably relates to his visit to Germany in 1928 which he recall in letter to Clemens ten Holder dated 23rd April 1951:"were celebrating the defeat of Essen Verein at hockey, I having played inside left for Bonn Verein, a refrain that went, every now and then: Zwei null! we having defeated them 2-0. Also there was another song to the refrain Drei Segelmann (Collected Letters Vol 2 Pg 375).

To date, no German song has been identified called Drei Segelmann. The title of the song translates in Lowry's poor German as 'sail man' which is probably incorrect. Lowry could have possibly Germanicised a sea shanty called We be Sailors Three by Thomas D'Urfey (1653-1723):


Chorus:
We be sailors three,
Pardonnez moi je vous au prie
Lately come forth of the Low Country
With never a penny of money

Here good fellows, I drink to thee,
Pardonnez moi je vous au prie
To all good fellows where-ever they be
With never a penny of money.   (Chorus)
And he that will not pledge me this,
Pardonnez moi je vous au prie
Pays for the shot, whatever it is,
With never a penny of money.  (Chorus)

Charge it again, boys, charge it again,
Pardonnez moi je vous au prie
As long as you've got any ink in your pen
With never a penny of money (Chorus)


Further sea shanties/songs relating to three sailors are discussed here.

Shenandoah

Lowry refers to the song Shenandoah in his novel Ultramarine;

‘Come on, Paddy, boy, give us a song.’
‘Yes, Paddy – good old Paddy – ’
‘Paddy – give us Paddy McGulligan’s daughter, Mary Ann.’ […]
‘Seraphina’s got no drawers, I been down and seen her, Ser-a-phina!’
‘No, that’s no good as a song; we want one of them old sea shanties, one of the real old timers.’
‘Shenandoah.’ (Pg 64)


‘Oh Shenandoah’ (also called simply ‘Shenandoah’, or ‘Across the Wide Missouri’) is a traditional American folk song, dating from at least the early nineteenth century. The lyrics may tell the story of a roving trader in love with the daughter of an Indian chief. Other interpretations tell of a pioneer’s nostalgia for the Shenandoah river, and a young woman who is its daughter; or of a Union soldier in the American Civil War, dreaming of his country home to the west of the Missouri river. The song is also associated with escaped slaves, who sang it in gratitude because the river allowed their tracks to be lost.

‘Shenandoah’ was first printed as part of William L. Alden’s ‘Sailor Songs’, in the July 1882 issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. The song had become popular as a sea shanty with British sailors by the 1880s.  The lyrics were printed in Sea Songs and Shanties, collected by W. B. Whall, Master Mariner (1910). A Mr J. E. Laidlaw of San Francisco reported hearing a version sung by a black Barbadian sailor aboard the Glasgow ship Harland in 1894, which went:

Oh, Shenandoah! I hear you calling!
Away, you rolling river!
Yes, far away I hear you calling,

Ha, Ha! I’m bound away across the wide Missouri.

My girl, she’s gone far from the river,

Away, you rolling river!

An’ I ain’t goin’ to see her never.

Ha, Ha! I’m bound away,’ &c

The above lyrics may be near to what Lowry knew or heard on board Pyrrhus.

Blow the Man Down

Lowry refers to a refrain from the sea shanty ‘Blow the Man Down’ being sung in his novel Ultramarine while Dana is in the red light district of Dairen; ‘As I was a-walking down Paradise Street’ (Pg. 113).

The lyric ‘Blow the man down’ refers to the act of knocking a man to the ground in a fight. A traditional explanation of its origins is that the Black Ballers were fast packet ships of the American Black Ball Line that sailed between New York and Liverpool towards the end of the nineteenth century. Lowry may have known the shanty from his time on Pyrrhus as the shanty was popular on Merseyside due to the local references in the lyrics. Lowry has introduced the refrain to draw attention to the similarities which he is creating between the ‘sailortown’ of Dairen and the ‘sailortown’ of Liverpool, whose epicentre was around Paradise Street, referred to in the shanty. Lowry was drawing here upon a mythology of Paradise Street, which was both imagined and real. The imagined temptations of drink and prostitutes were alluded to by Melville in his novel Redburn, which – narrating as it does the first voyage of an ‘innocent abroad’ – has many resonances with Ultramarine. Lowry knew Paradise Street as a youth, having visited the pubs in the area as well as the notorious Anatomy Museum, excerpts from whose catalogue he ‘borrowed’ for Ultramarine.

Chorus:

Oh, blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down
Way aye blow the man down
Oh, blow the man down, bullies, blow him away
Give me some time to blow the man down!

As I was a-walking down Paradise Street
Way aye blow the man dow
A pretty young damsel I chanced for to meet.
Give me some time to blow the man down!

Chorus

She was round in the counter and bluff in the bow,
Way aye blow the man down
So I took in all sail and cried, ‘Way enough now’.
Give me some time to blow the man down!

Chorus

So I tailed her my flipper and took her in tow
Way aye blow the man down
And yardarm to yardarm away we did go.
Give me some time to blow the man down!

Chorus

But as we were going she said unto me

Way aye blow the man down

There’s a spanking full-rigger just ready for sea.

Give me some time to blow the man down!

Chorus

But as soon as that packet was clear of the bar

Way aye blow the man down

The mate knocked me down with the end of a spar.

Give me some time to blow the man down!

Chorus

Its starboard and larboard on deck you will sprawl

Way aye blow the man down

For Kicking Jack Williams commands the Black Ball.

Give me some time to blow the man down!

Bollocky Bill

Lowry refers to Bollocky Bill in his novel Ultramarine; "Bollocky Bill, aspiring writer, drawn magically from the groves of the Muses by Poseidon." (Pg. 92).

The mythical Bollocky Bill – reputed to have been most generously testicled – was commemorated in the bawdy ballad ‘Bollocky Bill the Sailor’, a traditional folk song originally titled ‘Abraham Brown’. ‘Bollocky’ is pronounced and occasionally spelt ‘bollicky’, and may also be a reference to being left-handed or clumsy.

There are several versions of the bawdy song in the Gordon ‘Inferno’ Collection in the US Library of Congress. The first printed version of the song is in the public domain book Immortalia (1927). Later versions feature the eponymous ‘Barnacle Bill’, a fictional character very loosely based on a nineteenth-century San Francisco sailor and Gold Rush miner, William Bernard. There are also known versions in England and Scotland from the early twentieth century.

Again it is impossible to determine when Lowry first heard the song. The earliest known recording is an expurgated adaptation written by Frank Luther and Carson Robison, performed and recorded on 21 May 1930 by one of Lowry’s heroes, Bix Beiderbecke, featuring the vocal of Hoagy Carmichael, with another Lowry jazz hero Joe Venuti on the session. This recording, made during the writing of Ultramarine, may have prompted Lowry to adapt the persona of the mythical seaman.

One version of ‘Barnacle Bill’ refers to an exchange between Bill and a ‘fair young maiden’. Each verse opens with inquiries by the maiden, sung by women, or by men in falsetto, and continues with Bill’s profane responses, sung by men:

‘Who’s that knocking at my door? Who’s that knocking at my door?
Who’s that knocking at my door?’ said the fair Young Maiden…
‘It’s me and my crew and we’ve come for a screw!’ said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
‘It’s me and my crew and we’ve come for a screw!’ said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

Alternative responses:
‘It’s only me from over the sea’ said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
‘It’s only me from over the sea’ said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

‘Open the door, you pox-ridden whore!’ said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
‘Open the door, you pox-ridden whore!’ said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

‘Open the door, you dirty whore!’ said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
‘Open the door, you dirty whore!’ said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

This version of the song would suit the character of Dana at the point in Ultramarine at which he prepares to lose his virginity in the brothels of Dairen. Dana’s obsession, besides his guilt at the prospect of being unfaithful to his love Janet, is that he will catch syphilis from a prostitute. Another dimension to the introduction of the Bollocky Bill persona is that Lowry considered himself to be clumsy. Lowry endows Dana with the same clumsiness, which is constantly being reinforced by the crew of the ship.

Seraphina

Birkdale - a barque used on the Chilean nitrate trade

The sea shanty "Seraphina" appears in Lowry’s short story ‘Goya The Obscure’ (Pg. 270). A group of sailors returning from a voyage sing the sea shanty in the Dolphin pub in Birkenhead's docklands. Tradition has it that the song originated amongst the sailors who sailed the nitrate trade on barques between Birkenhead and the West Coast of South America. Lowry refers to the song in Chapter 2 of Ultramarine; "Sera- phina's got no drawers, I been down and seen her, Seraphina," (Pg. 64).  Lowry later reprises the line "Seraphina's got no drawers" during Dana's trawl around the brothels of Dairen in Ultramarine; "Three stokers swayed along the road, singing Seraphina. "Sera- phina's got no drawers, I been down and seen her, Seraphina," they shouted happily" (Pg. 100).

Lowry probably heard the song in the pubs of Birkenhead before and after his voyage to the Far East in 1927 aboard the Blue Funnel ship Pyrrhus. A former Blue Funnel sailor has told me that the song was still being sung into the 1950's around Birkenhead pubs. There appear to be many different versions of the song including some without the refrain "Serafina's got no drawers" which obviously stuck with Lowry.

See 'Seraphina' on Malcolm Lowry @ The Ninteenth Hole