Man at the Nore, The

 From Broadsheet held at National Library of Scotland
 
 Oh my father he kept the Eddystone light,
 And married a mermaid one fine night,
 Owing to which came offsprings three,
 Two of them was fish, and the other was me,
 Now when I was only a youngish chip,
 I was put in command of the Nore light ship,
 I could light all the lamps in a first-rate style,
 A game that I played according to ' oil.'
                           
 The jolly Nore, the stormy Nore,
 Where the waves they tumble o'er and o'er:
 But oh, what life is there on shore,
 Like the life that is led by the man at the Nore.
 
 One night when I was lighting the glim,
 A whistling a verse of the evening hymn,
 I saw by the light of the signal lamp,
 Mother looking awfully cold and damp ;
 When a voice from the starboard cries out "Ship, ahoy!"
 And there she was a floating on a buoy,
 Meaning a buoy for a ship that sails,
 And not that boy that's a juvenile male.
 
 So I says, hello, mother, how do you do,
 And how goes on my sisters two ?
 And she says, you artful dar,
 You not got no sisters, nor yet no pa ;
 Your pa was wrecked with several pals,
 And digested by the canni-bals.
 And your sisters—one was cooked in a dish,
 And the other one is the talking fish.
 
 So now farewell, my boy at the Nore,
 And don't you ever go on shore :
 She vanished from my sight a glittering scale,
 And that was the end of my mother's tale.
 So here I am by maternal wish,
 I can't see my sister, she's the talking fish,
 And if any of you should see her on shore.
 You can give her the love of the Man at the Nore. 


glim = slang term for a light (OED)

A popular, perhaps slightly surreal, music hall song in the repertoire of Arthur Lloyd in the 1860s and 70s, later adopted as a sea song, particularly in the USA. First printed references are in early in 1866, when “The Man at the Nore, Arthur Lloyd’s new song” appeared in a list of new music available to guinea subscribers of the publishers Cramer and Co (eg in The London Illustrated News, Feb 24, 1866).

The song is often credited to the writing of James London – a mysterious figure (to me at least) who doesn’t appear to have written any other songs in that period . One edition of the sheet music describes the song: as sung by Arthur Lloyd with rapturous applause, written by James London. James London is not mentioned in any of the newspaper ads, so it is perhaps possible Lloyd had a role in writing or composing it.

Lloyd’s repertoire included several nautical songs featuring mermaids – four of which have been taken up by traditional singers: this one, Down in a diving bell, Married to a Mermaid and Goodbye John.

The Man at the Nore has survived in several broadsheets in the UK, and has been collected from traditional singers in the USA. In the 1950s it recorded by The Weavers and Burl Ives. As far as I can see in America it tends to be called The Eddystone Light: references to the Nore disappear from the verses and it has a different chorus:

Yo ho ho, the wind blows free
Oh, for the life on the rolling sea

Cyril Tawney and other singers in Britain tend to sing it as The man at the Nore.

The Nore is a submerged sandbank at the mouth of the Thames Estuary and the site of the world’s first lightship, built in 1732. Part of the comedy of this song might have been derived from the fact that the singer was at perhaps a rather tame location when compared to the heroic Eddystone light off the stormy Cornwall coast?

As sung by Cyril Tawney: