Henry's Songbook

The Hog-Eye Man #1

• (Trad)

  And a hog-eye
  Railroad navvy with his hog-eye
  Row ashore, and a hog-eye oh
  She wants the hog-eye man

  Oh go fetch me down my riding cane
  For I'm goin' to see my darlin' Jane

  Oh the hog-eye men are all the go
  When they come down to San Francisco

  Now it's, Who's been here since I've been gone
  A railroad navvy with his sea-boots on

  Oh Sally in the garden picking peas
  Her golden hair hanging down to her knees

  Oh Sally in the garden shelling peas
  With a young hog-eye sittin' on her knees

  Oh a hog-eye ship and a hog-eye crew
  A hog-eye mate and skipper too

  (as sung by Ian Campbell)

The Hog-Eye Man #2

• (Trad)

  With a hogs-eye
  Row the boat ashore for the hogs-eye
  Steady on the jig with the hogs-eye oh
  She wants the hogs-eye man

  The hogs-eye man is the man for me
  He came a-sailing from the sea

  He came to the shack where his Sally did dwell
  And he knocked on the door and he rang her bell

  Oh Sally's in the garden picking peas
  And the hair of her head hanging down to her knees

  Repeat 1

  The hogs-eye ship and the hogs-eye crew
  With the hogs-eye mate and the skipper too

  (as sung by The McCalmans)

Susannes Folksong-Notizen

• [1959:] [Früher] gebrauchte man die Bezeichnung 'hog-eye' für eine bestimmte Art von Bark, welche um die Mitte des vorigen Jahrhunderts häufig in Gebrauch war, als die ersten Goldfunde in Kalifornien gemacht worden waren, die mangelnde Erschließung der westlichen Verkehrswege aber den Verkehr zur See weit bequemer und schneller vonstatten gehen ließen als den zu Lande. Warum jene Barken 'hog-eyes' hießen, ist nicht mehr bekannt. Die 'hog-eye men' jedenfalls waren die Matrosen dieser Schiffe. [...] Die 'railroad navvies', von denen als Nebenbuhlern die Rede ist, sind jene Arbeiter, die an dem nun mit Eifer unternommenen transkontinentalen Bahn- und Straßenbau zu Tausenden als Erdarbeiter tätig waren. (Dahl 61)

• [1964:] Though familiar to British seamen, this song, used mainly for capstan work, was probably made in America. It's still a favourite there, evidently, for the folklorist Vance Randolph found several versions current among Missouri hill-folk nearly a thousand miles from the sea. Alas, Randolph's versions remain in manuscript, locked away in a Sex Research Institute in Indiana. The version here - melody, at least - was taken down in the 1860s. (A. L. Lloyd, notes 'Farewell Nancy')

• [1999:] I can't find an outright definition just now, but there are one or two suggestive references. In a book of shanties published about 1920 the author appeals to the experience of old salts, who know what the term means, and refuses to be any clearer. Legman (Horn Book, 1964, p. 401), talking about Hugill's unpublished unexpurgated collection, says that without it and one other manuscript "it would be impossible, in future times, actually to assess their erotic content from the absolutely terrified hints and dark implications (as about 'hog-eye') in all the printed chantey collections." The term isn't in Partridge's Dictionary of Slang, or its later revision by Beale, but I think a little reflection will bring the (maybe reluctant) conclusion that hog-eye means what it looks like, i.e. [to put it primly] the female pudendum. (Murray on Saltspring, www.mudcat.org, 4 Jun)

• [1999:] The tow-path driver responsible for the draft animals which towed barges and canal boats on the old canal systems was known as the HOGGY; that possibly might be the basis for the term hog-eye, through folk etymology. (Bill in Alabama, www.mudcat.org, 7 Jun)

• http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=11353

Walkaway shanty/Stamp 'n' go song