“Bollochy Bill the Sailor”

Description

A dialogue song in which Bill -- who "just got paid and wants to be laid" -- seeks to get the fair young maiden into bed.

Notes

For a history of this onetime sea song, see Cray, _Erotic Muse_ II, pp. 83-85. - EC

Most of the printed versions of this song are fairly "clean." But Cray and Fuld are in agreement that it is properly a bawdy song. Fuld doubts the existence of its ancestor "Abram Brown the Sailor," but Cray quotes a text from the Gordon collection [and there is a version in Greenleaf/Mansfield- (BS)].

There is also a nursery rhyme about Abram Brown, found in Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #230, p. 150, ("Abram Brown is dead and gone"), but if that is associated with any song, it is probably "Old Grimes Is Dead."

Carson Robison is sometimes credited with a popular version of this ("Barnacle Bill the Sailor"), but obviously his part was no more than a clean-up (and production of sequels). - RBW

In the interest of history, it is worth recording that the scientists of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, during the Sojourner mission, named a particularly lumpy rock on the surface of Mars "Barnacle Bill the Sailor." - PJS

Same tune

• Frank Luther & his Pards "Barnacle Bill the Sailor, No. 2" (Edison 20008, 1929)
• Bud & Joe Billings (Frank Luther & Carson Robison), "Barnacle Bill The Sailor No. 2" (Victor V-40102, 1929)
• Bud & Joe Billings (Frank Luther & Carson Robison), "Barnacle Bill the Sailor No. 2" (Victor V-40102, 1929); "Barnacle Bill The Sailor No. 3" (Victor V-40153, 1929)
• Carson Robison, "Here I Go to Tokyo, Said Barnacle Bill, the Sailor" (Bluebird B-11460, 1942)
• Vernon Dalhart, "Barnacle Bill the Sailor - No. 2" (Harmony 1304, 1931)

Recordings

• Anonymous singers, "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" (on Unexp1)
• Bix Beiderbecke w. Paul Whiteman's Orchestra, "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" (Victor 25371, 1936)
• Bud & Joe Billings (Frank Luther & Carson Robison), "Barnacle Bill The Sailor" (Victor V-40043, 1929; Victor V-40153, 1929 [as Bud Billings & Carson Robison])
• Ned Cobbin [pseud. for Irving Kaufman], "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" (Harmony 861-H/Diva 2861-G, 1929)
• Billy Costello (Popeye), "Barnacle Bill, the Sailor" (Decca 1573, 1937)
• Frank Luther & His Pards, "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" (CYL: Edison 5678, c. 1929) (Edison 52532, 1929)
• Carson Robison, "Barnacle Bill, the Sailor" (Broadway 4054, c. 1932)
• Pete Wiggins, "Barnacle Bill, the Sailor" (OKeh 45295, 1929)

References

1. Greenleaf/Mansfield 49, "Abram Brown the Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
2. Cray, pp. 81-86, "Bollochy Bill the Sailor" (3 texts, 1 tune)
3. Shay-SeaSongs, p. 204, "Rollicking Bill the Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune, probably truncated since it ends with Bill asking for a place to sleep and the girl declaring she has only one bed)
4. Colcord, pp. 182-183, "Abram Brown" (1 text, 1 tune)
5. Harlow, pp. 164-166, "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
6. Hugill, pp. 440-442, "Abel Brown the Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune) [AbrEd, pp. 331-333]
7. Fuld-WFM, pp. 128-129, "Barnacle Bill the Sailor"
8. DT, BARNBILL BARNBIL2
9. Roud #4704
10. BI, EM081