YO HO HO

(Allison and Waller)



Fifteen men on a dead man's chest

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

Drink and the devil had done for the rest

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

The mate was fixed by the bosun's pike

The bosun brained with a marlinspike

And cookey's throat was marked belike

It had been gripped by fingers ten;

And there they lay, all good dead men

Like break o'day in a boozing ken

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.



Fifteen men of 'em stiff and stark

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

Dead and be damned and the rest gone whist!

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

The skipper lay with his nob in gore

Where the scullion's axe his cheek had shore

And the scullion he was stabbed times four

And there they lay, and the soggy skies

Dripped down in up-staring eyes

In murk sunset and foul sunrise

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.



Fifteen men of 'em stiff and stark

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

Ten of the crew had the murder mark!

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead

Or a yawing hole in a battered head

And the scuppers' glut with a rotting red

And there they lay, aye, damn my eyes

Looking up at paradise

All souls bound just contrawise

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.



Fifteen men of 'em good and true

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

Ev'ry man jack could ha' sailed with Old Pew,

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

There was chest on chest of Spanish gold

With a ton of plate in the middle hold

And the cabins riot of stuff untold,

And they lay there that took the plum

With sightless glare and their lips struck dumb

While we shared all by the rule of thumb,

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!



Fifteen men on a dead man's chest

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

Drink and the devil had done for the rest

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

We wrapped 'em all in a mains'l tight

With twice ten turns of a hawser's bight

And we heaved 'em over and out of sight,

With a Yo-Heave-Ho! and a fare-you-well

And a sudden plunge in the sullen swell

Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell,

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!





A flimsy girl on a bunker cot

With a dirk slit sheer through the bosom spot

And the lace stiff dry in a purplish rot

Oh was she wench or was she jade

Or was she just a shuddering maid?

She dared the knife and she took the blade

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.



Note: From a 1901 Broadway musical. Inspired by quatrain

in Stevenson's Treasure Island. Reportedly, "Dead Man's

Chest" was a Caribbean island rendezvous of buccaneers

and smugglers. Last verse supplied by JY, other printed in

Songs of the Navy, USNA RG



@sailor @pirate @death

filename[ YOHOHO

play.exe YOHOHO

JY, RG

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