| AKA | All the nice girls like a sailor |
| First published | 1905 |
| Lyrics | AJ Mills | Music | Bennett Scott | Roud | V53408 |
| Music Hall performers | Hetty King 1910s, 20s etc Ella Retford 1910s, 20s etc |
| Folk performances |
When the man-o-war or merchant ship comes sailing into port The Jolly Tar with joy, will sing out 'Land ahoy' With his pockets full of money and a parrot in a cage He smiles at all the pretty girls upon the landing stage. All the nice girls love a sailor All the nice girls love a tar For there's something about a sailor Well, you know what sailors are Bright and breezy, free and easy He's the ladies pride and joy Falls in love with Kate and Jane Then he's off to sea again Ship ahoy, ship ahoy. Jack is partial to the yellow girls across the Eastern seas With lovely almond eyes, the tar they hypnotise And when he goes to the Sandwich Isles he loves the dusky belles Dressed a la Salome, coloured beads and oyster shells. He will spend his money freely and he's generous to his pals While Jack has got a sou, there's half of it for you And it's just the same in love and war, he goes through with a smile And you can trust a sailor, he's a white man all the while.
A song whose chorus seems to have been imprinted on every person born in the British Isles before about 1980… But I’m not aware of it ever being a hit in the traditional music world as such, perhaps because it’s so well-known, or maybe it’s the racist last line…
Hetty King (1883 to 1972), billed as “The Immaculate Man”, was one of the most famous female-to-male cross dressers in the Music Hall of the early 20th century. She was born into a family of travelling artistes, her father had a portable theatre and managed a troupe called Uncle Billy King’s Minstrels. From as young as the age of five, Hetty was mimicking male comedians. In her early 20s she became a male impersonator full-time with hits like I Want a Gibson Girl and When I Get Back to Piccadilly.
King’s most famous hit was Ship Ahoy! – her stage impression of a sailor was apparently reinforced by the many hours she spent learning how to cut and roll pipe tobacco like the sailors did. She received love letters from young women, but unlike the other female cross dressers like Ella Shields, Hetty was reputed to treat them rather cruelly, claiming that letters from female admirers sickened her.
Ella Retford (1886-1962) was billed as “The Breezy Comedienne”. She was born in Ireland and celebrated the fact in her hit song of 1914 “We’re Irish and we’re proud of it too,” but also had a hit with “Hello There, Little Tommy Atkins” during World War 1. She recorded a number of records in the 1920s.
Ella Retford sings:
Sources:
- VWML entries
- Lyrics: monologues.co.uk
- Baker: British Music Hall
- Kilgarriff Sing us
- Kilgarriff Grace, Beauty
- MacQueen-Pope, The Melodies Linger
- Sheet Music: Digital Commons at Ithaca College
- Sheet music in Weekly Dispatch (1910) requires subscription
Last Updated on January 2, 2023 by John Baxter | Published: April 16, 2020
