Bound for South Australia

About this arrangement

A sea shanty, a work song sailors sang while they hauled on ropes, with the crew shouting back “Heave a-way! Haul a-way!” after every line. The verse stays in C position with the thumb on middle C. In the chorus the little finger stretches up to A and the C above for “Haul a-way, you rol-ling kings”, which starts with a dotted crotchet and a quaver (eighth note), long-short. There is a quaver rest in bar 4 and a slurred pair of quavers for “We’re” in bars 6 and 14. The left hand plays oom-pah chords, C, F and G7, often changing in the middle of the bar.

Practice tip: Play the solo lines gently and the “Heave away” answers strongly, like a shantyman and his crew. Practise the jump from G up to the high C on its own.

The words

In South Australia I was born, Heave away! Haul away! In South Australia round Cape Horn, We're bound for South Australia. Haul away, you rolling kings, Heave away! Haul away! Haul away, you'll hear me sing, We're bound for South Australia.

A short history

“South Australia” is a sea shanty, number 325 in the Roud Folk Song Index. It was first printed in 1888 by Laura Alexandrine Smith in The Music of the Waters, who collected it from a sailor at a Sailors’ Home and called it a capstan shanty, sung while the crew walked round the capstan to raise the anchor.

It is often linked with the wool and wheat clippers that sailed between Australian ports and London, but sailors sang it on many routes, and on the docks too. Like most shanties it had no fixed words: the shantyman sang a line, the crew roared the answer, and verses were borrowed or made up on the spot.

The form sung today, and given here, is not the 1888 one: it comes from the version William Main Doerflinger collected from an old sailor, William Laurie, and published in 1951, which the English singer A. L. Lloyd recorded in 1957. The shanty had already become a camp song by the 1940s, and the folk revival spread this version further.

Quick facts

Tune

Traditional (sea shanty, printed 1888)

Key

C major

Time signature

4/4

Length

16 bars and a pickup

Tempo

Heartily, crotchet = 108

Difficulty

Level 4: Up to the C above (piece 116 of 201)

Type

Australian

Hands

Both: melody in the right hand, chords in the left

Copyright

Public domain tune; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal and classroom use

Questions and answers