© WildGoose Records 2007. Available to purchase from iTunes, Amazon and other major download sites.
A song from northeast England, which Claire learned from the eponymous 1971 album by Anne Briggs. A.L. Lloyd wrote in the sleeve.notes:
"Sir Richard Runciman Terry, member of a Northumbrian shipping family and a good collector of sailing-ship shanties dredged up this song from childhood memory and gave it to W.G. Whittaker who published it in North Countrie Ballads, Songs and Pipe-Tunes in 1922. In the song, “keel” means a sea-going boat, not the flat-bottomed coal-barges usually associated with the Tyne."
Have you seen ought of my bonny lad?
Are you sure he's well-o?
He's gone away with a stick in his hand,
He's gone to row the keel-o.
Yes I have seen your bonny lad,
'Twas on the sea I spied him.
His grave is green but not wi' grass
And you'll never lie beside him.
Have you seen ought of my bonny lad?
And are you sure he's well-o?
He's gone away with a stick in his hand,
He's gone to row the keel-o.
