Drunken Sailor

"Drunken Sailor" is a sea shanty, also known as "What Shall We Do with a/the Drunken Sailor?"

The shanty was sung to accompany certain work tasks aboard sailing ships, especially those that required a bright walking pace. It is believed to originate in the early 19th century or before, during a period when ships' crews, especially those of military vessels, were large enough to permit hauling a rope whilst simply marching along the deck. With the advent of merchant packet and clipper ships and their smaller crews, which required different working methods, use of the shanty appears to have declined or shifted to other, minor tasks.

"Drunken Sailor" was revived as a popular song among non-sailors in the 20th century, and grew to become one of the best-known songs of the shanty repertoire among mainstream audiences. It has been performed and recorded by many musical artists and appeared in many popular media.

Although the song's lyrics vary, they usually contain some variant of the question, "What shall we do with a drunken sailor, early in the morning?" In some styles of performance, each successive verse suggests a method of sobering or punishing the drunken sailor. In other styles, further questions are asked and answered about different people.

The song is No. 322 in the Roud Folk Song Index.

The air of the song, in the Dorian mode and in duple march rhythm, has been compared to the style of a bagpipe melody. The authorship and origin of "Drunken Sailor" are unknown. However, the melody does sound quite similar to the chorus of the traditional Irish ballad "Óró sé do bheatha abhaile", and a possible adaptation may be suspected.

The first published description of the shanty is found in an account of an 1839 whaling voyage out of New London, Connecticut to the Pacific Ocean. It was used as an example of a song that was, "performed with very good effect when there is a long line of men hauling together". The tune was noted, along with these lyrics:

Although this is the earliest discovered published mention, there is some indication that the shanty is at least as old as the 1820s. In Eckstorm and Smyth's collection Minstrelsy of Maine (published 1927), the editors note that one of their grandmothers, who sang the song, claimed to have heard it used during the task of tacking on the Penobscot River "probably considerably over a hundred years ago".

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