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All for Me Grog / Across the Western Plains

[ Roud 475 ; Ballad Index K274 ; trad.]

A.L. Lloyd sang All for Me Grog in 1956 on his Riverside album English Drinking Songs (and in 1961 on the Topic EP All for Me Grog which is just an extract of the LP). He commented in the album's sleeve notes:

Here we have a sailor's song from the last bitter days of sail; a hard-scrubbed, threadbare relic of hearty “Yo-ho-ho” songs of old. Jack Tar is no longer jolly—his boots are scuffed, the rags of his shirt-tail flog him in the breeze, the alcoholic horrors are not far off and it's time to look for a ship again.

An Australian variant of this is the title track of Lloyd's 1958 album, Across the Western Plains. He commented in the sleeve notes:

In the latter days of sail the seamen had a song called Noggin Boots or Across the Western Ocean. It was a bitter song about the sailor with his boots scuffed and his shirt-tail “looking out for better weather,” who has spent all his money on girls and gin, and now with the horrors not far off he has to take a ship across the Western Ocean once again. The song drifted to Australia, and some ingenious bushwhackers remade it to suit local conditions, and called it Across the Western Plains. The Sydney Bulletin printed a version of the Australian re-make in May 1916, at it was included in the 1926 edition of Paterson's Old Bush Songs.. No doubt, many country workers learned it from these two sources. The tune, well-known among seafarers, was not hard to come by. Sung straight, the song never seemed to me wildly exciting, but I once heard a drunken shearer named White sing it on a station near Bethungra, N.S.W., in a way that would make the hair stand on end. Ever since, I've tried to release this song from its hobbles, but I've never been as successful as Mr White.

The Watersons sang quite a different version of All for Me Grog in 1966 on their eponymous album The Watersons and on the Topic Sampler Sea Songs and Shanties. Like all but one track from The Watersons, it was re-released in 1994 on the CD Early Days. Once again, A.L. Lloyd commented in the original album's sleeve notes:

Once again, the Watersons got this song from the collections of Frank Kidson. Helen Creighton, the distinguished Canadian collector, found a version in Nova Scotia and suggests that the song was originally a music-hall favourite. As Across the Western Plains, the song is well-known in Australia, in versions relating to the adventures of a pastoral worker. As a sea shanty, the song was used in English ships for both capstan and halyard work.

Louis Killen sang All for Me Grog in 1977 at the Philadelphia Folk Festival.

Jon Boden sang the Watersons' version of All for Me Grog as the October 21, 2010 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day.

Lyrics

A.L. Lloyd sings All for Me Grog

Chorus (after each verse):

All for me grog, me jolly jolly grog
All for me beer and tobacco
For we spent all our tin with the lassies drinking gin
And across the western ocean we must wander

Where are me boots, me noggin', noggin' boots
All gone for beer and tobacco
And the heels they are worn out and the soles are knocked about
And me toes are looking out for better weather

I'm sick in the head for I haven't been to bed
Since first I came ashore with me plunder
I see centipedes and snakes and I'm full of pains and aches
So I better make a push out over yonder.

Where is me shirt, me noggin', noggin' shirt
All gone for beer and tobacco
And the collar is wore out and the front is knocked about
And the tail is looking out for better weather

A.L.Lloyd sings Across the Western Plains

Chorus (after each verse):

Oh for me grog, oh me jolly jolly grog
Oh for me beer and tobacco
Well I spent all me tin on a shanty drinking gin
Now across the Western Plains I must wander

I'm stiff stoney broke and I've parted with me moke
And the sky is looking black as flaming thunder
And the shanty boss is too for I haven't got a sou
That's the way you're treated when you're down and under

Well I'm crook in the head for I haven't been to bed
Since first I touched this shanty with me plunder
I see centipedes and snakes, and I'm full of pains and aches
So I'd better make a push out over yonder

I'll take that Old Man Plain and I'll cross it once again
Until me eyes the track no longer see, boys
And my beer and whisky brain looks for sleep but all in vain
And I feel as if I had the Darling Pea, boys

So hang that blasted grog, that hocussed shanty grog
And the beer that's loaded with tobacco
Grafting humour I am in and I'll stick the peg right in
And I'll settle down once more for some hard yakka

The Watersons sing All for Me Grog

Chorus (after each verse):

All for me grog for me jolly jolly grog
All for me grog and tobacco
For I spent all my store with the lassies on the shore
And it's all for me grog and tobacco

When I come home then my sweetheart I shall see
All for me grog and tobacco
And me sweetheart'll sing when she sees the wedding ring
And it's all for me grog and tobacco

When she's a son for to dandle on her knee
All for me grog and tobacco
And she's sing him to sleep while a sailor's stormy deep
And it's all for me grog and tobacco

When he's a man then a sailor he shall be
All for me grog and tobacco
With his pipe and his can like a proper sailor man
And it's all for me grog and tobacco

Acknowledgements and links

The Watersons' All for Me Grog was transcribed by Garry Gillard. The Across the Western Plains lyrics I borrowed from Mark Gregory's Australian Folk Songs website.

See also the Mudcat Café thread Origin: All for me grog.