COLLECTED FROM GEORGE PATTISON

LOWLANDS

George Pattison
Cape de Couedie Lighthouse
Kangaroo Island
South Australia
4 Dec 1924 (and 1941)
Clive Carey SS419

A dollar and a half a day is a white man’s pay
Lowlands, Lowlands, heigh ho.

I find it interesting that this is the only stanza that Pattison recalled for Carey, especially since this was a universally popular song. It was used as both a pumping and windlass shanty.

The usual chorus runs

Lowlands, Lowlands away my John!
Lowlands away.

So it is strange to see a ‘heigh ho’ in this version. Hugill says that the ‘song, being difficult to sing in general was only attempted by good shanty men.” He further adds, and this is very relevant to the Pattison stanza, that “It was one of the shanties which passed through the Shanty Mart of the Gulf ports, turning up later with the final refrain rendered:

My dollar an’ a half a day!

Hugill’s version in Shanties of the Seven Seas does not have this final refrain.