Cecil Sharp's Note 89 (1916)

No. 89. Spanish Ladies

This is a Capstan Chantey. It is also well known in the navy, where it is sung as a song, chanteys not being permitted, Captain Kettlewell, R.N., who has made a special study of this song and has very kindly revised the words for me, tells me that when it is sung on board ship, the conclusion of the chorus is, or always used to be, greeted with a shout of “Heave and pawl!” (the pawl is the catch which prevents the recoil of the windlass). The tune is in the Æolian mode and, in my opinion, it is one of the grandest of our folk-tunes and one of which a seafaring nation may well be proud. Nowadays, alas! sailors sing a modernized and far less beautiful form of the air in the major mode.