Lyrics
Sloop John B
Bahamian Folk Song
Traditional, but credited to Blind Blake (Blake Alphonso Higgs) for performing and also recording the song in 1952.
We come on the sloop John B.,
My grandfather and me,
Around Nassau town we did roam.
Drinking all night,
Got into a fight,
Well, I feel so break up,
I want to go home.
Chorus
So hoist up the John B’s sails,
See how the mainsail sets,
Call for the Captain ashore,
Let me go home,
Let me go home,
I want to go home, (yeah yeah)
Well, I feel so break up,
I want to go home.
The first mate, he got drunk,
And broke up the people’s trunk,
The Constable had to come and take him away.
Sheriff John Stone,
Why don’t you leave me alone? (yeah yeah)
Well, I feel so break up,
I want to go home. (Chorus)
The poor cook he caught the fits,
And threw away all my grits,
And then he took and he ate up all of my corn.
I wanna go home,
Why don’t they let me go home? (yeah yeah)
Oh, this is the worst trip since I’ve been born. (Chorus)
We said good-bye to the Sloop John B.,
All of my mates and me.
Then we went ashore and waved it away,
I’m so glad I got home,
Oh, I’ll never more roam.
I don’t feel so break up,
I finally got home.
Chorus (x2)
So hoist up the John B’s sails,
See how the mainsail sets,
Call for the Captain ashore,
Let me go home,
Let me go home,
I want to go home, (yeah yeah)
Why don’t you let me go home,
Well, I feel so break up, I want to go home.
WHERE TO FIND IT
Song Notes
Wikipedia says, “Sloop John B” (originally published as “The John B. Sails”) is a Bahamian folk song from Nassau. A transcription by Richard Le Gallienne was published in 1916, and a version was included in Carl Sandburg’s The American Songbag in 1927. Since the early 1950s there have been many recordings of the song with variant titles including “I Want to Go Home” and “Wreck of the John B”.
“The John B. Sails” is a folk song that first appeared in print in a 1917 American novel, Pieces of Eight, written by Richard Le Gallienne. Alan Lomax included the song in his 1935 collection, Deep River of Song, as “Histe Up The John B Sail”; sung by the Cleveland Simmons Group, Old Bight, Cat Island, Bahamas, July 1935. Perhaps apocryphal, but it has been stated that the John B. was an old sponger boat whose crew were in the habit of getting notoriously merry whenever they made port. It was wrecked and sunk at Governor’s Harbour in Eleuthera, the Bahamas, in about 1900.
From the liner notes of Kraken Up (written by Gina, unsurprisingly): Sit back, relax, and pretend you are lazing about on a Caribbean island. Now play this song and sway gently along with the hypnotic rhythm of the islands. Now, slowly open your wallet and purchase this CD for all of your friends, family, dog-groomers, and that guy in the corner cube whom you’ve never met but looks like a nice enough fellow and deserves some time on your imaginary island with Bounding Main.
Gina Dalby added the final verse shown here to this song.