Fun with Folk Music

Now playing: Bruce Broughton - Arrival In Tombstone
via FoxyTunes

While working today I started listening to the Men of the Robert Shaw Chorale's singing of various sea shanties, which is always a treat, and came across one that I hadn't heard before, but very much liked the tone of. So you all could have an idea of it, I quickly threw together the video below. Have a listen!

Having looked up the song on question on it's wikipedia page, it became apparent that there were a bunch of different sets of lyrics that the tune could go along with, some of which have nothing to do with Santa Anna. However, the lyrics that the MotRSC sing in the above video, sounded a little...off...when it came to the Mexican general. For instance:

He beat the Prussians Fairly,
Way ah, me Santa Anna
He whacked the British nearly,
Along the plains of Mexico.

First off, the battle in question is The Battle of Monterrey, which is already mixed up by the main versions of this song (the British, at the time, were fond of the idea of the Americans being beaten up, so they swapped out the Mexican defeat for an American rout in the lyrics). And secondly, the battle was purely an American/Mexican Affair. If the British ever got involved, they would probably have been on the Mexican side. And even if the stanza in question was about Santa Anna's life in general, I doubt he had much to do with the British, much less the Prussians.

I did some digging online and found an excerpt from an eBook copy of Shanties from the Seven Seas on the song in question ("Santiana or The Plains of Mexico (The benevolent sailor version)"). The author quoted the odd lines in question from another source, saying that it "gives Santiana as having fought the special enemies of Napoleon!" and that "These of course are stanzas from Boney." Being, of course, a shanty about the life and times of Napoleon.

I'm not sure of the how's and why's of the version I've put in the video, but every other version I've heard (in sample form, online) from other groups have used the other sets of lyrics. Whatever the case may be, it was interesting delving into the world of cataloging of folk songs. Remind me to rant about the jig "The Pipe on the Hob" some other time.


Enough, More Later.
- James