Drunken Sailor, also known as What Shall We Do with a/the Drunken Sailor? is shanty that became popular in the 19th century by sea-fairing crewmen. With the changes in crew size and work over the century, the song fell out of popularity among ship workers, but it found new popularity with non-sailors in the 20th century. The song is #322 in the Roud Folk Song Index.
Games
Arctic Shipwreck (C64)
Nemo's Vault (C64)
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Bart vs. the World (AST)
The song plays, fittingly, on the pirate ship level.
Bart vs. the World (AMI)
The song plays, fittingly, on the pirate ship level.
The song was arranged by Andi McGinty in Protracker.
Pirates! Gold (W16)
Sheet Music
Lyrics
Like all ancient rhymes, there exist a number of alternate lyrics, many of which have been modernized as vocabularies have changed. These are some of the more common traditional lyrics.
Chorus:
What shall we do with a drunken sailor,
What shall we do with a drunken sailor,
What shall we do with a drunken sailor,
Early in the morning?
Refrain:
Weigh heigh and up she rises
Weigh heigh and up she rises
Weigh heigh and up she rises
Early in the morning
Traditional Verses:
Put/chuck him in the long boat till he's sober.
Put him in the long-boat and make him bale her.
Put/lock him in the guard room 'til he gets sober.
Put him in the scuppers with a hose-pipe on him.
Pull out the plug and wet him all over
Tie him to the taffrail when she's yardarm under
Heave him by the leg in a runnin' bowline.
Scrape the hair off his chest with a hoop-iron razor.
Give 'im a dose of salt and water.
Stick on his back a mustard plaster.
Keep him there and make 'im bale 'er.
Give 'im a taste of the bosun's rope-end.
Soak him in oil till he sprouts a flipper.
What'll we do with a Limejuice skipper?
What shall we do with a drunken soldier?
What shall we do with the Queen o' Sheba?
What shall we do with the Virgin Mary?
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