The Great Fish Finger Disaster

TitleThe Great Fish Finger Disaster
AuthorI don't know
SourceI first learned this off a record by Fred Wedlock.
Categorieshumour, shanty
CommentsSince I first learned this I have heard a couple of people do it at folk clubs and they always add a 'Nearr' (with finger in ear) between verses. I am not sure whether it is better with or without this, but nowadays I do it this way, because people expect it (also gives you an extra second to remember the words for the next verse). The first verse mentions the place where we set sail from. The joke is that this is somewhere inland. Fred Wedlock used Solihull. I generally try to use the name of somewhere local to where I am singing. It doesn't really matter I suppose, but I always like to choose somewhere beginning with the letter S. e.g. Shepshed, Sapcote... I also altered 'transistors' to 'computers' to bring it a bit more up-to-date. I sing this unaccompanied. I have to remember to start on quite a low note otherwise I end up singing it too high, and it doesn't work so well.
Lyrics
Come all you gallant sailors
Who sail across the sea
And listen to this story
I'm about to tell to thee
Concerning those bold fishermen
Who sail the seas so wet
A hunting for fish-fingers
With a harpoon and a net

Twas in the year of 64
or was it 63?
That we set sail from Shepshed
Bound for Americee
The storms they was a-raging
And the waves a dreadful sight
It took us forty days, me boys
To reach the Isle Of White

Our captain's name was Gladys
And he wore a dress of red
Which might have been the reason
He was not married
He was the gay old sea dog
And it was his favourite joy
To take a stroll around the deck
With the handsome cabin boy

Two hundred miles from Iceland
A mighty shoal we spied
MacFisheries Fish-fingers
Came a-floating against the tide
We set off in our longboats
But then our luck we cursed
Alas we were too late
The chinese take-away got there first

Those slant-eyed heathens came at us
They was a dreadful crew
All brandishing computers
And giving it the old Kung-Fu
We sang to them a sea shanty
But they did not want to know
Their skipper felled our mizzen mast
With one Karate blow

We came back to old England
A twelve months and a day
It would have been much quicker, but
We took the pretty way
No more I'll go fish-fingering
On the frozen arctic shore
Next year I'll hunt beef-burgers
On the plains of Ilkey Moor

MusicI don't have the music written down.

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