Music Of The Waters - online book

Sailors' Chanties, Songs Of The Sea, Boatmen's, Fishermen's,
Rowing Songs, & Water Legends with lyrics & sheet music

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	122                Music of the Waters.
	Solo.—" Our keelmen brave, with laden keels, Go sailing down in line, And with them load the fleet at Shields, That sails from coaly Tyne. Chorus.—" So here's to coaly Tyne, &c. Solo.—" Let us unite with all our might, Protect Queen Caroline, For her will fight, both day and night, The sons of coaly Tyne. Chorus.—" So here's to coaly Tyne, &c." There are a number of verses to this song, all more or less patriotic in sentiment; but, like most local songs, it could only be interesting to those who are acquainted with the people and places alluded to. Tyneside is so rich in songs, that I find myself obliged to confine my selections to those that are best known as the favourites of the water­side population. The fisherfolk who belong to that most quaint north-country village, Cullercoats, have acquired for themselves a celebrity that is only rivalled by one or two other similar places. Their fresh vigorous hardihood, fearless boldness, and thrifty ways have long been characteristic of them, but it is perhaps to the Cullercoats fishwives that the fact of their wide-spread popularity is especially due, with their warm and at all times seasonable-looking costumes, their always fresh and comely and sometimes really bonny faces, and their creels of tempting fish; the Cullercoats fish­wives are familiar and welcome objects in the streets of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and their oft-repeated cries of " Will ye buy any fish ? " and " Shares o' caller ling," are perhaps amongst some of the most original cries to be heard on the banks of the Tyne. The peculiarly pro­longed notes in which the " Buy any fish ? " is called, make it very difficult to render accurately. n j, Slow. ______