Alphabetical list of tags
by The Auntie Shanty Crew
This is an alphabetical list of the tags that we’ve used to categorise the songs in the songbook. If you’re looking to browse through the themes, this page might be more helpful.
The Tags
African_or_African-American_origin - this tag is used for songs which are recorded by any source as having African or African American origins. Note that the shanty form owes its origin to the work songs of enslaved people - many songs without this tag were influenced by these traditions.
appears_in_a_film - this tag is used for songs that appear in movies.
appears_in_a_Russell_Crowe_film - subset of “appears in a film”. A song that has appeared in a film that also features the actor Russell Crowe.
appears_in_Fishermans_Friends - subset of “appears in a film”. A song that appears in any of the 🌐Fisherman’s Friends movies.
Assassins_Creed - songs that are heard in the 🌐Assassin’s Creed video game series.
Australia - songs from Australia, about Australian places, or about Australian people
ballad - songs which are ballads - generally songs telling a story, with not much ‘joining in’ opportunity. If leading a ballad in a session it is useful to be familiar with the song, and “tell the story” through your performance rather than just “singing the right words”.
childhood - songs derived from nursery rhymes, playground chants or lullabies.
Cicely_Fox_Smith - songs written by or otherwise associated with 🌐Cicely Fox Smith
comedy - songs which are intended to make the audience laugh. It’s difficult to define this one. Ideally the whole song should be intended to be comedic - a song with just one ‘joke’ somewhere in it doesn’t get this tag.
coming_home - songs about returning home
drinking - songs about drinking alcoholic drinks. Note that this should be an important part of the song. A song which just mentions ‘rum’ or ‘grog’ once does not merit this tag.
farewell - saying goodbye in all its forms. Goodbye to the land at the start of a voyage, goodbye to foreign shores, or goodbye to ships and shipmates at the end.
feminist - songs that the Auntie Shanty crew consider to have a feminist outlook. This is inherently difficult to define, and we’ve been (and will continue to be) generous in our application of this tag.
fishing - songs relating to fishing and the fishing industry.
France - songs from France, about French places, or about French people
Grace_OMalley - songs about the Irish queen 🌐Gráinne O’Malley. These may also be tagged with ‘Ireland’ and ‘piracy’.
herring - any song that’s about herring
historic_events - tells the story of a real event. This should be a defined ‘event’ (a meeting of characters, a battle, a shipwreck) rather than a song with a general ‘in the past’ setting.
hope - songs about hope, or that leave us feeling hopeful in some way
impressment - songs about being 🌐press ganged into the navy (or trying to avoid it)
Ireland - songs from Ireland, about Irish places, or about Irish people
Janie_Meneely - songs written by or otherwise associated with Janie Meneely
Jeanne_de_Clisson - songs about the French privateer 🌐Jeanne de Clisson
lament - songs of grief and sorrow
LGBTQ_plus - LGBTQ+ (our IT system doesn’t like the plus sign, which is why it’s “_plus” in the tag). Songs that have LGBTQ+ characters and themes. Note that many other songs can be interpreted as LGBTQ+ - any anonymous narrator singing about a lover who has gone away to sea could be interpreted as any gender, for example.
lifeboats - songs about sea-rescues or saving lives at sea. Doesn’t require the inclusion of an official ‘lifeboat’ or the RNLI - any sea-rescues should get this tag.
maritime_trade - songs relating to carrying cargo from place to place
minor_key - songs literally or metaphorically in a minor key - sad or sad-sounding songs. If singing in a session, please be aware that these might sometimes change the atmosphere - if there’s been a series of fast, upbeat songs, a sad one may cause ‘musical whiplash’, so please handle with caution.
modern_seafaring - songs that focus on the changing world of life at sea, and the passing of the ‘age of sail’, possibly with nostalgia for the past. The archetypal songs for this tag are “Shantyman” by Bob Watson and “The Last Shanty” by Tom Lewis.
more_chorus_than_verse - a song with more “join in” lines than solo lines. In general, these are the easiest to lead well. This is one of the most-used tags, so we can be discerning about using it – if it doubt, do not include this tag
Nancy_Kerr - songs written by or otherwise associated with 🌐Nancy Kerr
naval_warfare - songs about warfare at sea
no_tags - songs which defy description and don’t fit into any of the other categories. If a song has the ‘no_tags’ tag, it should have only this tag. (🌐Russell’s Paradox)
non-english-language - songs which are all or part in a language that is not English
non-male_narrator - at least one narrative voice within the song is assumed not to be a man. Again, many other songs in the songbook can be reinterpreted and regendered (or ‘ungendered’) as the singer sees fit. And in many songs the narrator is not given a gender.
non-male_writer - songs with at least one named writer who isn’t a man. Alongside these, do please note that ‘traditional’ and ‘anonymous’ were also both prolific authors, and their gender is unknown.
Northeast_England - songs from or about the north-eastern coast of England. For geography purists, we are using the term ‘the northeast’ to cover an area of the coast stretching from the Scottish border down to Lowestoft - far wider than the official UKC “North East” area.
Northwest_England - Songs originating from or otherwise related to England’s north-western coast, including Liverpool and Merseyside. We understand this coastline to run from the northern end of the England/Wales border to the western end of the England/Scotland border
Northwest_Passage - songs about the 🌐Northwest Passage, and/or attempts to find and pass through it.
originally_a_poem - songs to which the words were originally published as poetry, and set to music later
parody - a song that is a parody of another song. This is distinct from ‘rewrite’. A parody can be only fully appreciated when the listener is familiar with the original song, whereas a ‘rewrite’ would make full sense without knowledge of any ‘original’ version.
perseverance - songs about keeping-on-keeping-on in the face of adversity.
piracy - songs about pirates, piracy and other related concepts (privateers, buccaneers, corsairs, letters of marque, and sea-raiders of all types).
post-2000 - songs which were written after the year 2000.
rebellion - songs about mutiny and rebellion against authority
redirect - pages with this tag aren’t songs. The pages are ‘signposts’ towards other pages. Items that appear here with a ↝ symbol mean that the song appears under a different name. Items with a ♲ symbol mean the song is intentionally not included but we’ve suggested an alternative.
rewritten - songs which have been significantly rewritten (more than just changing pronouns or chopping out dodgy verses). Note that this is distinct from ‘parody’.
rivers - any song which includes a river
romantic_love - songs which focus on happy romantic love between people. This does not include more abstract ‘love’ - like love for a ship, love for a place, or love for rum.
Royal_Navy - songs about the 🌐Royal Navy. These may also get the ‘naval warfare’ tag, but not always.
Scotland - songs from Scotland, about Scottish places, or about Scottish people
sea_creatures - any song about animals of the sea, including seabirds and fictional animals
seafaring_women - songs about women who go to sea
ship - the title of the song is the name of a boat or ship, or the song is focused primarily on a ship itself
shipwreck - songs in which a ship is sinking, sunk or is otherwise seriously damaged.
short_song - very short songs, which may be sung through a few times or used as a round. Our working assumption is that songs with 16 lines or fewer will get this tag.
Southern_England - Songs originating from or otherwise related to southern England. This includes any part of the English coastline that is not included in the “Northeast England” or “Northwest England” tags.
Stan_Rogers - songs written by or otherwise associated with 🌐Stan Rogers
supernatural - contains ghosts, mermaids, spirits, witches or any sort of supernatural occurrence.
technicolour - songs that appear on our website in with colour-coding for different parts. Many of these will also have the ‘two_voices’ tag.
two_voices - songs which have two or more distinct ‘characters’ within them, which work well when ‘led’ by more than one person. Where our songbook version indicates this with coloured text, see also the ‘technicolour’ tag.
whales - Songs where the whale itself is considered in the song, beyond “we went out to hunt a whale”. The whale should have agency and/or emotions.
whaling - songs about hunting whales, the whaling industry, or events that happened on whaling ships
women_on_the_shore - songs with female characters who don’t go to sea. The people on shore should have a significant presence - not just “we miss them girls we left behind”.