{"id":5534,"date":"2021-01-23T12:53:58","date_gmt":"2021-01-23T16:53:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thejovialcrew.com\/?page_id=5534"},"modified":"2022-08-13T09:23:39","modified_gmt":"2022-08-13T13:23:39","slug":"old-maui","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thejovialcrew.com\/?page_id=5534","title":{"rendered":"Old Maui"},"content":{"rendered":"

A ubiquitous sea song, beloved by most everyone in this genre.\u00a0 Here in Connecticut, we mostly associate it with the great voice of Don Sinetti<\/a>; however, Cliff holds court with this as well.\u00a0 There are<\/em> more verses than the four we sing, but we also feel that the way we present it makes a good sing while adding every verse known to man begins to wear our audience down.<\/p>\n

I recently heard someone muse, innocently, that the song is a composition of Stan Rogers.\u00a0 It’s unfortunately common that when folk songs are posted, for lyrics or chords, online for public consumption they are often misattributed to some recording artist who merely covered the song.\u00a0 “Rolling Down To Old Maui” is much older than Stan… The melody<\/span> to the song comes from “The Miller of Dee” (AKA, The Jolly Miller, and much later, The Jolly Grinder).\u00a0 It first appears in print in 1762 in the ballad opera “Love in a Village” by Isaac Bickerstaffe, and became a rather popular song in northwest England at that time.\u00a0 By the 1830s or 40s the variant “The Jolly Grinder” is found with a rather similar storyline, seemingly updated for that generation.\u00a0 Within a couple of decades the melody has gone to sea and with a change in the time signature has been merged with the words to “Old Mohee” or “Old Maui”; it’s in reference to Kamchatka bowhead whale and Pacific sperm whale fishing, and the Hawaiian Islands, and was found in a journal made aboard the ship the Atkins Adams,\u00a0<\/em>which had sailed out of New Bedford, MA in 1858.\u00a0 Gale Huntington includes it in his book “Songs the Whalemen Sang” (p.27) with a different melody than “The Miller of Dee” and in 4 time.\u00a0 \u00a0He writes he had collected from Frederick Pease Harlow’s “Chanteying Aboard American Ships”.\u00a0 Also found in a “copy book” of a one George Piper who served aboard a whaling vessel from 1866 to 1872.<\/p>\n

Jos. Morneault<\/p>\n

For Cliff’s page and recording of the song, see his page link here.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It’s a damn tough life full of toil and strife we whalermen undergo.
\nAnd we don’t give a damn when the day is done how hard the winds did blow.
\nWe’re a-homeward bound from the Arctic ground with a good ship, taut and free.
\nAnd we won’t give a damn when we drink our rum with the girls of Old Maui.<\/p>\n

chorus:<\/u><\/strong>
\nRolling down to Old Maui, me boys<\/em><\/strong>
\nRolling down to Old Maui<\/em><\/strong>
\nWe’re homeward bound from the Arctic ground<\/em><\/strong>
\nRolling down to Old Maui.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Once more we sail with a northerly gale towards our island home.
\nOur mainmast sprung, our whaling done, And we ain’t got far to roam.
\nSix hellish months have passed away on the cold Kamchatka Sea,
\nBut now we’re bound from the Arctic ground rolling down to Old Maui.<\/p>\n

chorus<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once more we sail with a northerly gale through the ice and wind and rain.
\nThem coconut fronds, them tropical lands we soon shall see again.
\nOur\u00a0stu’n’s’l<\/a>\u00a0boom is carried away; what care we for that sound?
\nA living gale is after us; thank God we’re homeward bound.<\/p>\n

chorus<\/strong><\/p>\n

How soft the breeze through the island trees; now the ice is far astern.
\nThem native maids, them tropical glades, is a-waiting our return.
\nEven now their big brown eyes look out hoping some fine day to see
\nOur baggy sails runnin’ ‘fore the gales rolling down to old Maui.<\/p>\n

chorus 2x<\/strong><\/p>\n