In an heroic documentation effort, the fabulous Chris Crowe (and Jono Odlum) wrote down all of the Shanties sung at any Shanty event they attended from 2018 to 2023 (with that big hole in the middle for covid). Here are the resulting stats, outlinine the top 10 and top 20 shanties sung over that time. In 2025 this mostly holds.
The shanty lyrics for most of these you can find on the internet. Where it’s an original I’ve linked to it below. I’ve made a spotify playlist of the top 10. You’ll find a list of our original shanty lyrics here.
Here they are listed in popularity order
- South Australia
- Chemical Workers Song
- Ten Thousand Miles Away
- London Town
- Row me Bully Boys
- Donald Where’s Your Trousers
- Haul Away Joe
- The Wee Room
- The Wild Rover
- All the Good Times are Past and Gone
- Oceanliner
- The Essex
- On the Railroad
- Mingulay Boat Song
- De Clisson (original song by Carlo Ritchie)
- Who’s Gonna Dig these Graves
- White Collar Holler
- The Whale
- Shanty Gospel (original by Cindy Tonkin)
- Cornbread and Butterbeans
And if you’re interested we generally get through 24 – 27 songs in a 2 hour session at shanties. More if we sing them faster!
Shanty Lyrics as sung at Redfern Shanty Club, Camperdown Shanty Club, Surry Hills Shanty Club. More info
