The Rebirth of the Sea Shanty

Halloween has passed and the air is becoming the sweet, crisp, cold native to the depths of fall. As popular television program Game of Thrones once said: “Winter is coming.” While leaves begin to fall from their autumnal peak in a time of such pure unmitigated chaos, one perfect event remains constant- cruise line announcement season.

In a cycle more predictable than the rising of our very own sun, big cruise lines are once again releasing their winter schedules. Picture it now- The Bahamas, Cuba, Mexico, Florida. Billions of Americans are excitedly preparing to spend the better parts of their winters on massive ships, drifting in international waters off the coasts of these idyllic paradises. Ahhhhh, how peaceful, right?

I could talk about cruises all day, every day, but unfortunately I don’t think that’s why I was hired to write for this magazine. As I was pondering the nature of cruises during meditation hours in my study, I did happen to have a music-related thought that I would like to share with you. Now this is a rather controversial opinion so I would like for you, reader, to take your time and try to digest this information slowly. I am entirely sure that you will agree with me if you just give the idea a chance to seep into the inner sanctum of your mind.

Now, without further adieu, I will try to present this idea to you in a coherent manner despite my all-consuming excitement about it. Here we go.

Any music that is played on a cruise is technically a sea shanty.

Now that I have presented you with my theory, I would implore you to try and digest the mind-bending nature of this revelation before immediately coming to ransack my home and/or office because of your shock.

Great. Thank you for being professional about this. We may now engage in an academic discussion of the ramifications of this statement.

Surely you know what a sea shanty is but for those who do not, I will provide a brief description via Wikipedia.com: “A sea shanty, chantey, or chanty is a type of work song that was once commonly sung to accompany labor on board large merchant sailing vessels. The term shanty most accurately refers to a specific style of work song belonging to this historical repertoire.”

For those of you who are still curious or confused, I will attach a link to one of my personal favorite examples:

As a cruise lover, I rejoice in the idea of listening to sea shanties as I seek both glory and relaxation on the high seas, yet I have never been able to fully relate to sea shanties in their traditional sense as they are generally songs of hard work, toil, and strife. These concepts are utterly disgusting to me. This is why I am so excited about my theory; suddenly all of the songs that I love to listen to on land give me even greater pleasure when listened to on the high seas. Not only do I get to enjoy the complex and varied selection of ballads on my iPod, I also get to feel like a pirate or whaler while doing so! I would anticipate you, reader, to feel the same way as me next time you take a cruise; but if you don’t, maybe music isn’t for you.

Throughout this piece I have skated around one of the main implications that I discovered because of this idea. You are undoubtedly familiar with the massive media conglomerate Disney? Well, newsflash fuckface, they have their own cruise line! What does that mean? Well it means that every single Disney song IS a sea shanty.

This is decisively true and my logic on this is ironclad so it’s not even worth it to argue against it. My question becomes this: when will Disney begin to treat their songs as the rough and rallying sea tunes that they are? For example, take the musical film “Frozen”. In it, two sisters abandoned due to their parents likely opioid addiction, must travel through the icy wilds of northern Europe in order to fight rampant man-made climate change. Disney could easily pivot this fantastical and unrealistic story into artful realism by changing the setting to the docks of London in the 1890’s and replacing the ice powers with Syphilis. Boom, shanty. A damn good one too. The song “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” can easily be replaced by something along the lines of “Do You Want to Seduce the Dockmaster Before Killing Him, Taking His Coin, and Distributing it Amongst the Other Vagrant Children That Live Behind the Inn?” It’s really so simple and I’m very surprised that Disney hasn’t already thought of this.

The above was just an example of the multitude of changes Disney can and should implement in order to make their little stories and songs more in line with my beliefs.

As much as I hope Disney takes my suggestions and gives me a commission, I hope even more that you, reader, have taken my ideas to heart and will use them for your own gain to make the upcoming cruise season the best it can be. After all, I am an altruist.