> Cyril Tawney > Songs > In Frisco Bay (Noah's Ark Shanty)
In Frisco Bay / Noah's Ark Shanty (A Long Time Ago)
[
Roud 318
; Ballad Index Doe037
; VWML GG/1/14/887
; Mudcat 34826
; trad.]
Stan Hugill sang the long drag or halyard shanty A Long Time Ago at the Seattle Chantey Festival during the American Sail Training Association's 1978 Tall Ships Pacific. This recording was published a year later on the Folkways album Sea Songs Seattle.
Swan Arcade recorded Noah's Ark Shanty in Workington in August 1991 for the Fellside anthology of English traditional songs, Voices. Paul Adams commented in the album's notes:
Shanties were work songs and finding an example was not difficult. Which one was much more difficult. This one is interesting because (a) as an aetiological work song it is probably unique in the English tradition, (b) it was collected by the greatest of the folk song collectors, Cecil Sharp on the 3rd June, 1914 from Capt. Hole of Watchet, Somerset (the famous Watchet sailor!) and (c) Swan Arcade are not usually associated with the singing of sea shanties. Their dramatic, hard hitting harmony style coupled with their uninhibited repertoire makes them great favourites in folk song circles. They are Dave and Heather Brady and Jim Boyes. Dave does his damnedest to make this a Yorkshire song.
But even if Swan Arcade were not usually associated with the singing of sea shanties, they did record Blood Red Roses a year earlier for their CD Full Circle.
Cyril Tawney sang In Frisco Bay (Noah's Ark Shanty) in 1992 on his cassette of sea songs for children, Little Boy Billee.
Jon Boden sang Noah's Ark Shanty as the 4 September 2010 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day.
Pete Coe sang Noah's Ark Shanty in 2011 on his CD Tall Tailes.
Fay Hield learned this song from Swan Arcade's recording and sang it in 2016 on her third album, Old Adam.
The 2020 book Southern Songster has a version of A Long Time collected by George Gardiner from James G. Bounds at Portsmouth Workhouse on 16 August 1907 [ VWML GG/1/14/887 ] . This version has completely different verses than the above about Noah's Ark; instead a Portsmouth sailor parts from his girl to sail to Hongkong. Here this version is sung by Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne who did the musical notation for the book:
Lyrics
James G. Bounds sings A Long Time
A long time and a very long time,
To my way, hay, aye ya,
A long time and a very long time,
A long time ago
In Portsmouth town where I was born
'Twas there I joined the boys in blue
And in Portsmouth town there lived a girl
And this young girl I loved her so well
It was through her I first went to sea
So we sailed away from Portsmouth town
To Hong Kong town where we was bound
So good-bye, Sally, good bye, my dear
Swan Arcade sing Noah's Ark Shanty | Fay Hield sings A Long Time Ago |
---|---|
In Frisco Bay there were three ships |
In Frisco Bay there were three ships |
And one of them ships was Noah's old ark |
And one of them ships was Noah's old ark |
Chorus (repeated after every other verse): | |
They took two animals of every kind |
He took two animals of every kind |
The bull and the cow they started for t' row |
The cat bit the rat with a howl and a yowl |
Then said old Noah with a flick of his whip |
“Ah now,” said Noah with a flick of his whip |
But the bull struck his horn through the side of the ark |
But the bull struck his horn through the side of the ark |
So Noah took the dog, shoved its nose up the hole |
Noah took the dog, shoved its nose up the hole |
It's a long, long time and a very long time |
It's a long, long time and a very long time |
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Georgina Boyes for correcting an embarrassing mondegreen.