History of Sea Shanties

Sea shanties, or sea chanties, are traditionally songs sung aboard sailing vessels used to keep the crew in sync as they work to the rhythm. Obviously there are not many sailing ships still roaming the seas, but sea shanties have lived on in the form of pub songs and fisherman songs. From there they have gone on to gather large communities of listeners who long for the sea or just enjoy the simple rhythms. 

It is unknown when sea shanties originated due to how simple they can be. Since the purpose of a sea shanty is to keep the sailors in sync, they can be as simple as a chant or as complex as a musical. Shanties can be separated into capstan shanties and pulling shanties. Capstan shanties tend to be more like marching songs, as they needed regular rhythm to guide the sailors as they marched around the capstan (the mechanism on a boat that lowers the anchor). Pulling shanties were less regular due to the sporadic work of pulling on the ropes, but it still allowed the sailors to coordinate their pulls on the ropes.

Although sea shanties were common on merchant ships, they were actually uncommon on naval vessels. Naval vessels often had plenty of soldiers aboard the ship for battle, meaning that when there were plenty of hands to help with the sailing and coordination was not as crucial. Since their whole goal was profit, merchant vessels did not have many sailors, and as a result had to be very coordinated to sail the ship. 

The word “shanty” can be found in dictionaries as old as 1869, but the origin of the word is unknown. Due to the alternative spelling, “chanty,” it is thought that it could be derived from the french word “chanter,” meaning to sing. It is also thought that the songs could have been passed on to the sailors from the logging camps known as “shanties.” It could also be as simple as deriving from the English word “chant.”

Sea shanties have a long and mysterious history that this article only begins to scratch the surface of. For anyone interested in learning more, “A Deep Dive into Sea Shanties,” which can be found in the Library of Congress, is a great place to start. And if someone is only familiar with popular shanties such as “The Wellerman” from TikTok, I suggest the band The Longest Johns to learn more sea shanties.