Timber
Channel: Stephen Griffith
Date: 2020-11-16

Day 243 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series

"An old black man on an Indiana farm near Porter had sung many spirituals and was asked, Did you ever make up a song while working with other workers on a job?" He said that near Lynchburg, Virginia, when he was young they were cutting down timbers and hauling to a building under construction, and they made a hundred verses to this tune. ...

In his notable series of articles in the New York Times on "Folk Songs of America,” R. W. Gordon says of work chanteys, "The solo lines are sung by one man, a leader or 'foresinger,' and the crowd joins in on the refrain. The task may be one that calls for a series of heavy pulls on a rope or of successive heaves when moving a heavy piece of timber. ...

A song often used on the docks is composed out of fragments loosely strung together. Tomorrow, or at a different task, it will be sung differently. Local allusions may at any time be introduced, but the tune and the refrain will remain the same. The very looseness of form in these work chanteys gives the leader a wonderful opportunity for directing the work without seeming to do so. If he is clever he will take advantage of many facts. To keep his men working steadily over long periods without feeling fatigue, he will choose a song that seems endlessly monotonous and count on its hypnotic power.

Whenever a specially heavy heave is needed he will introduce a humorous verso or one that will appeal to the imagination of the men. Unconsciously, they will shout the refrain louder and at the same time pull harder. A good leader will always be careful to choose a song fitted to the task, one that has just the proper resting period in proportion to the frequency arid the strength of the required pulls. He will pick a slow rhythm for continued work, a quirk one for a sudden burst of energy." ...

In the following work chantey the singers took turns improvising solo lines, the group joining in on "Hallelujah, I don't know."