by Jason Snell
We’ll take our leave and go
Clayton Ashley of Polygon can help explain why you’re hearing sea shanties in your head now. And if you’re not hearing them now, you will be hearing them as soon as you click through:
Just like the crew of a ship would join each other in song to keep up their spirits on a long, isolated journey, TikTok users began to duet and remix the aged sea shanty… A sea shanty such as this one was meant to help keep sailors on tempo as they worked on the ship. The lyrics and melody typically aren’t too tricky to sing for that reason, which also happens to make the genre a perfect fit for the collaborative users of TikTok. You can just join in for the surprisingly catchy chorus or, if singing isn’t your thing, add some musical accompaniment instead.
Don’t miss Kermit getting in on the action.
While I’m on the sea shanty beat, I also appreciated this Tweet:
sea shanties are popular right now because behavioral synchrony feels really, really good to humans and many of us have been social distancing for months and deprived of this, thanks for coming to my ted talk
— Leigh Cowart (@voraciousbrain) January 13, 2021
There’s also a nice Daily Dot report about how “The Wellerman” made it big thanks to a band called The Longest Johns and the pirate-themed video game, Sea of Thieves.