Events at
The Square
cow
Solent Shanty Boys
Friday 27th May From 9pm
What are shanties? Shanties are the working songs of the sea. Sailing ships needed lots of men to hoist and trim the sails. They had to work in unison, and they had to put their backs into it, this was helped by getting them to sing in time for the hauling.
In truth, few of the shanties that have been passed down were actually working songs. But what the heck, they still serve the purpose of getting people to sing together and that is our aim. We share the joy of singing together, and we aim to keep the songs alive.
What songs do we sing? We have a full range of songs associated with the sea – many of the well-known, some of them less so, some of them unique to us. They all have choruses that you can join in with – we even provide the words if you want them.