The Maritime "Folksongs" of Edward Harrigan

Edward Green Harrigan was born October 26, 1844, in the Corlear's Hook section of Manhattan. His father was a native of Carbonear, Newfoundland, a former first mate on the New York--Liverpool packet ship run; his paternal grandfather was a fisherman in County Cork, Ireland. His mother's line was likewise well connected to the sea. Harrigan's maternal grandfather was a gunner, fatally wounded aboard the Chesapeake in her celebrated 1813 battle with the Shannon, and his grandmother ran a boardinghouse for sailors. Corlear's Hook was a largely Irish neighborhood, home to New York's shipbuilding industry during much of the 19th century. Harrigan's father worked in the yards at Corlear's Hook, and found his son a job there as a caulker. Working long hours, tediously pounding tarry hemp between the planks of leaky ships, Ned Harrigan labored for four years, but he wanted more ... a life on the stage. Ned took to the sea as a teenager, first to Gulf Coast ports, later to California, where he found work as a caulker in San Francisco Bay shipyards by day, moonlighting as a singer, accompanying himself with the banjo. Eventually, and with strong support from many maritime trades workers there, he became a full-time entertainer. Back in New York as a well-established performer, Harrigan began to stretch vaudeville skits into full-length plays. They were anything but static pieces. He refined, added to, and reintroduced them frequently. When he expanded a skit, Old Lavender's Water, to make a one-hour play and it didn't achieve the success he had envisioned, Harrigan lengthened the comedy again in 1885, adding, among other elements, Up, Jack, John, Sit Down. The play was one of his finest, and Up, Jack, John Sit Down remains one of his most successful songs--but only a handful of the many people who sing it today know its origin. Oh, ships will come and ships will go as long as waves do roll; Each sailor lad, like his dad, will love the flowing bowl. Afloat, ashore they do adore a lass that's plump an roun'; When the money's gone 'tis the same old song, Get up, Jack, John, sit down. Heigh laddie, ho laddie. Swing the capstan roun) When the money's gone 'tis the same old song, get up, Jack, John sit down. An old sheathknife and souwester are staunch old friends at night; A glass o' grog in rain or fog, will steer a sailor right. From old Brasil to Bunker Hill we scatter dollars roun'; When the money's gone 'tis the same old song, Get up, Jack, John, sit down. Go take a cruise on men o' war to China or Japan; In Asia there the maidens fair, all love a sailor man; While Tom and Joe palaver oh, and buy the girls a gown; When the money's gone 'tis the same old song, Get up, Jack, John, sit down. When Jack's ashore, oh, then he'll steer to some old boarding house, He's welcomed in with rum and gin, and fed on pork and souse; He'll spend and lend, and never offend, and lay drunk on the groun'; When the money's gone 'tis the same old song, Get up, Jack, John, sit down. …

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