<P> Now this is a song that's usually sang when men are walking away with the slack of a rope, generally when the iron ships are scrubbing their bottom . After an iron ship has been twelve months at sea, there's a quite a lot of barnacles and grass grows onto her bottom . And generally, in the calm latitudes, up in the horse latitudes in the North Atlantic Ocean, usually they rig up a purchase for to scrub the bottom . </P> <P> Another American sailor of the 1870s, Frederick Pease Harlow, wrote in his shanty collection that "Drunken Sailor" could be used when hauling a halyard in "hand over hand" fashion to hoist the lighter sails . This would be in contradistinction to the much more typical "halyards shanties", which were for heavier work with an entirely different sort of pacing and formal structure . Another author to ascribe a function, Richard Runciman Terry, also said it could be used for "hand over hand" hauling . Terry was one of few writers, however, to also state the shanty was used for heaving the windlass or capstan . </P> <P> "Drunken Sailor" began its life as a popular song on land at least as early as the 1900s, by which time it had been adopted as repertoire for glee singing at Eton College . Elsewhere in England, by the 1910s, men had begun to sing it regularly at gatherings of the Savage Club of London . </P> <P> The song became popular on land in America as well . A catalogue of "folk - songs" from the Midwest included it in 1915, where it was said to be sung while dancing "a sort of reel". More evidence of lands - folk's increasing familiarity with "Drunken Sailor" comes in the recording of a "Drunken Sailor Medley" (ca. 1923) by U.S. Old Time fiddler John Baltzell . Evidently the tune's shared affinities with Anglo - Irish - American dance tunes helped it to become readapted as such, as Baltzell included it among a set of reels . </P>

What will you do with a drunken sailor