In the popular culture, the best place to find interesting “new” material can be in the past. Were that not the case, bell bottoms, avocado-green furniture, and shag carpet would still be hiding in the sands of time. But these have reemerged, and proudly I might add! So, too, have sea shanties as a popular phenomenon. So what is a sea shanty?

A sea shanty is a vigorous song sung by those whose livelihood is related to the sea or other body of water. The term likely takes us back to the French verb “to sing” (chanter), and to the earlier Latin verb cantare.

So a sea shanty is a sea song—but not one extolling the poetry of water as an art song might do. Rather it springs from the bowels of the sea to synchronize the labor necessary to load, unload, haul, drop, raise, and pull things associated with ships and cargo.

In harbors today, massive equipment does a large percentage of the work historically accomplished by sailors’ muscles. But even so, life at sea still demands coordinated physical labor, toiling in synchronicity to get the job done.

We forget how much repetitive, grueling labor once belonged in everyone’s daily life. While we associate the genre of “work songs” with  prison gangs, peasants, serfs, and slaves who shattered rock, cut fields, and towed barges, endless categories of lesser exhausting, yet demanding repetitive work fell to others: carding wool, churning butter, kneading bread, shelling nuts, shucking corn, stomping grapes, wringing clothes, and milking cows. Such duties often were allocated to women, so work songs in those cases might have texts about love or gentle folly.

But for sailors, there was little place for sentiment. Words to their sea shanties were rough and tumbling. Salty language peppered many songs. We get a good account of how work at sea was facilitated by shanties in this description:

Every man sprang to duty. The cheerful shanty was roared out, and heard above the howl of the gale. . . .[T]he men, soaked and sweating, yelled out hoarsely, “Paddy on the Railway,” and “We’re Homeward Bound,” while they tugged at the brakes, and wound the long, hard cable in, inch by inch. (Seven Year’s of a Sailor’s Life by George Edward Clark, 1867)

History aside, why in the world have sea shanties become an Internet sensation? One reason stems from the fact that many of us have been conducting our lives online for a year and a half. How is it that a task on screen can dissolve into exploring vintage teapots, watching an Olympic trial for downhill skiing, or a searching YouTube videos for advice on repairing a lawnmower? I don’t know, but it does. So why not click on the hottest tweeted videos of folks singing sea shanties?

It’s almost impossible not to be caught up by these songs! Furthermore, many people have not been exposed to the vigor and glory of authentic folk music. Our modern ears have been pelted, instead, by digitally polished productions of hip-hop, rap, and rock, as well as grandiose music in film scores.

Sea shanties, like most folk music, are simple in style, form, and content. A single-line melody reigns, perhaps touched by a bit accompaniment, but usually a cappella. Real human voices—acoustic, not altered by microphones—belt out these tunes from the gut. The words are sharp, rough, and at times funny. They tell a story of sorts, and, truth be told, stories are severely lacking in most of today’s popular music. Clearly the rhythms are compelling, fixed as they are to the patterns of physical work. And melodies are angular, bold, tough, plus instantly memorable.

Yet the shanties are still emotional and full of imagination. They are sung by people who rely on music to give them the heart and soul necessary to do hard labor. Sailors count on these songs to pick up their lagging spirits and tired bodies when despair creeps in. Music has saved many a life, literally, in this world (another story for another day). And strengthening the ability to keep the work going against debilitating physical obstacles has been one of music’s glories.

Finally, through various technologies, people can participate in singing these shanties. I have not seen all the ways this is done, but they go well beyond the old-fashioned karaoke machine. My favorite video so far is on TikTok and shows a fellow driving a car, eyeing his friend who is crooning away on the passenger side. Maybe I should say the passenger is “crowing” this music, for his gusto resembles more a crow than a croon. The driver is simultaneously annoyed and amused—a wonderful human reaction.

You really do have just two choices with sea shanties. You can roll your eyes or you can join in! And hundreds of thousands have joined in. This phenomenon gives me a lot of hope, to be honest. So often I stand at a podium and plead the fact that our human souls crave natural, rhythmic, lyrical music. Despite a bit of roughness, this is what a sea shanty offers. Add in the wiry stories, scrunch up your eyes, and poof: your imagination will take you back to those robust fellows who first sang these songs, hauling sea-soaked sails through cold blasts of air and the stinging waves of the stormy oceans.