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Blood Red Roses

[ Roud 931 ; Ballad Index Doe022 ; trad.]

A.L. Lloyd sang this halyard shanty in his uncredited role as lead shantyman in the movie Moby Dick, directed by John Huston in 1956:

He also recorded it in the same year for his, Ewan MacColl and Harry H. Corbett's album The Singing Sailor. This track has been reissued lots of times, on their albums Row Bullies Row, Singing Sailors (Wattle Records), Off to Sea Once More (Stinson Records), and A Hundred Years Ago, and on the compilations Sea Songs and Shanties (Topic Sampler No 7), Chants de Marins IV: Ballads, Complaintes et Shanties des Matelots Anglais, Classic A.L. Lloyd, and Sailors' Songs & Sea Shanties. It is unknown who sings chorus although Ewan MacColl's voice can be detected. A year later, in 1957, A.L. Lloyd and Ewan MacColl sang Blood Red Roses on the Riverside LP Thar She Blows!

A.L. Lloyd commented in the A Hundred Years Ago sleeve notes:

One of the best of halyard shanties, undeservedly little known until it became current in the folk song clubs fairly recently. Old Cape Horners have been unable to suggest the meaning of the refrain. Stan Hugill, in his excellent Shanties from the Seven Seas quotes a fragment that may be relevant:

Ho Molly, come down
Come down with your pretty posy
Come down with your cheeks so rosy
Ho Molly, come down

and in the Classic A.L. Lloyd sleeve notes:

For a halyard shanty this one is unusually well evolved. Stan Hugill thinks it probably started life early in the nineteenth century. I'd have thought later, by its shape. Its first mention in print is 1879. Old Cape Horners have been unable to suggest the meaning of the refrain. In some Napoleon ballads the British army is referred to as “the bunch of roses.” More probably it's an image garbled from a scrap quoted by Hugill:

Come down with your pretty posy
Come down with your cheeks so rosy

It must be noted though, as Gibb excellently argued in the Mudcat Café thread Origins: Blood Red Roses, that the chorus line “Go down, you blood red roses” seems to have been invented by A.L. Lloyd himself in the film Moby Dick and later in his recordings. There seems to be no evidence of this line in any published document prior to 1956; e.g. Captain R.C. Adams in On Board the Rocket (1879) has a chorus of “Come down, you bunch of roses”, and Doerflinger in Shantymen and Shantyboys (1951) prints a text and melody for “Come down, you bunch of roses.” Whereas other chanteys in his collection are from recordings he made in New York, this one, which he calls “very rare,” he got from an 1893 manuscript of a notation of a sailor from Massachussetts. He had never seen nor heard this chantey otherwise. Stan Hugill, who was mentioned in Lloyd's sleeve notes abote, seems to have adopted the chorus line from Lloyd too.

Peter Bellamy sang Paddy Doyle's Boots and Blood Red Roses in a 1964 private recording that was included in 1999 on his Free Reed anthology Wake the Vaulted Echoes.

A live performance fragment of Blood Red Roses by an early incarnation of the Watersons called the Folksons (Lal, Mike and Norma Waterson, John Harrison, and Pete Ogley) from 1964 was published in 2004 on the Watersons' 4CD anthology Mighty River of Song.

Louis Killen sang Blood Red Roses in 1970 on his South Street Seaport Museum LP 50 South to 50 South and in 2002 on the Revels CD Homeward Bound.

Swan Arcade recorded Blood Red Roses for their 1990 CD Full Circle (and, to stay in the mood, sang Noah's Ark Shanty a year later on the Fellside anthology Voices: English Traditional Songs.)

Jon Boden learnt Blood Red Roses at the Forest School Camps and sang it as the September 23, 2010 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day. His verses are somewhat similar to the ones the Watersons used in the shanty The Plains of Mexico on their 1966 album The Watersons.

Lyrics

A.L. Lloyd sings Blood Red Roses	The Folksons sing Blood Red Roses
Our boots and clothes is all in pawn Go down, you blood red roses, go down! And its flamin' drafty 'round Cape Horn, Go down, you blood red roses, go down! Oh, you pinks and posies, Go down, you blood red roses, go down!	Our captain he has set us down Go down, you blood red roses, go down! And he has sailed till Auckland town Oh, you pinks and posies Go down, you blood red roses, go down!
It's 'round that cape we all must go Around all stiff through the frost and snow.	Well the captain he's left us on grog And just once looked(?) he in a ten pound tug
Oh my old mother, she wrote to me, My dearest son, come home from sea.
It's growl you may, but go you must, If you growl too hard your head they'll bust.
Just one more pull and that will do For we're the boys to kick her through.	Just one more pull and that will do Just one more pull to see us through
	Well the captain he's come over with fear He's grown him a tail like Lucifer
Jon Boden sings Blood Red Roses
Come all you yong fellows and listen to me Go down, you blood red roses, go down! Never take a pretty girl on your knee Go down, you blood red roses, go down! Oh, you pinks and posies, Go down, you blood red roses, go down! When I was a young man in my prime I could take them pretty girls nine at a time But now I'm old and getting grey I can only manage two a day Them Liverpool girls don't wear no coats They comb their hair with a kipper backbone

Links

See also the Mudcat Café thread Origins: Blood Red Roses (what's it mean?)