12-18-2023, 03:02 PM
I don't suppose any of you know this... but I actually have a "pick up" group of shanty singers (for those of you not familiar with this kind of thing, I let my friends who filk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filk_music) that I'll be at a convention and will do a set of shanties and if any want to join me, we can all sing together. So... no practice but we are musicians and we know how to fake it for entertainment's sake)
(yes, I have a peculiar set of accomplishments)
Aaaanyway, I was browsing a newly available book from the Oriental Institute of Chicago (many of their publications are free) and came across a poem from ancient Egypt that surely sounds like a shanty. It's called "Oh, I’m bound downstream on the Memphis Ferry" and it's about a young man who's leaving home to go to the big city (Memphis.)
There's other things in there, including Akhenaten's Hymn to the Sun and a spell for love.
https://www.academia.edu/5961694/Ancient...Literature
But I was absolutely delighted to find a poem or song that might have been something like a shanty from the depths of time. It's the little things like this that make scholarship fun.
(yes, I have a peculiar set of accomplishments)
Aaaanyway, I was browsing a newly available book from the Oriental Institute of Chicago (many of their publications are free) and came across a poem from ancient Egypt that surely sounds like a shanty. It's called "Oh, I’m bound downstream on the Memphis Ferry" and it's about a young man who's leaving home to go to the big city (Memphis.)
There's other things in there, including Akhenaten's Hymn to the Sun and a spell for love.
https://www.academia.edu/5961694/Ancient...Literature
But I was absolutely delighted to find a poem or song that might have been something like a shanty from the depths of time. It's the little things like this that make scholarship fun.
