> Danny Spooner > Songs > John Kanaka

John Kanaka

[ Roud 8238 ; Ballad Index FaE050 ; Folkinfo 117 ; DT JONKANAK ; Mudcat 21413 ; trad.]

John Roberts and a chorus of Louis Killen, Tony Barrand, Gordon Bok, Jon Eberhard, Andy Wallace and Jeff Warner sang John Kanaka on the 1977 album Clearwater II.

Stan Hugill sang John Kanaka on his 1980 Greenwich Village album of shanties and stories of life under sail, Stan Hugill Reminisces. He and Stormalong John sang it at “Fêtes du chant de marin”, Paimpol 1991. This was included in the following year on their Le Chasse-Marée CD Chants des Marins Anglais. And he sang it in 1998 on the live CD Stan Hugill in Concert at Mystic Seaport.

Ian Giles, John Spiers, Jon Boden, and Graham Metcalfe sang John Kanaka in 2002 on the Gift of Music album of “rousing songs from the age of sail”, Sea Shanties.

The Shanty Crew sang John Kanaka on the 2004 Lancaster Maritime Festival anthology, Beware of the Press-Gang!!.

Danny Spooner and chorus sang John Kanaka in 2009 on his album Bold Reilly Gone Away. He noted:

In [Richard Henry] Dana’s book Two Years Before the Mast, he makes mention of work-songs sung by kanakas loading cargoes along the Californian coast. Stan Hugill tells us he learned the song John Kanaka from a “wonderful West Indian shantyman, Harding of Barbados”. In Australia ‘kanaka’ was the term given to islanders who were stolen away into Australia to work like slaves in the cane fields.

This video shows Skinny Lister performing John Kanaka at Lincoln Hall Chicago in 3 November 2016:

Ian Bruce with Katharina Bramkamp and Frank Deckert sang John Kanaka on Bruce’s 2023 album of collaborations, Together Forever.

Keith Kendrick and Sylvia Needham sang John Kanaka in 2026 on WildGoose’s album of songs by Roger Watson, All in Due Curse. Roger Watson noted:

An update of an old shanty about working conditions, which took on a new direction after the parliamentary expenses scandals of the early 2000s.

Lyrics

Danny Spooner sings John Kanaka

“I hear,” I heard the Old Man say,
    John Kanaka naka too lai ay
“Tomorrow is our sailing day.”
    John Kanaka naka too lai ay

Chorus (after each verse):
Too lai ay, ooohh, too lai ay,
John Kanaka naka too lai ay.

I thought I heard the bosun say,
“Work tomorrow but not today.”

The blower says, “Before I’m done
You’ll wish to Christ you was no man’s son.”

And the striker says, “Before I’m through
You’ll curse your mother for having you.”

There’s rotten meat and there’s musty bread,
And “Pump or drown!” the Old Man said.

She wouldn’t wear and she wouldn’t stay,
She was taking water night and day.

When we arrive in the Mobile Bay
We’ll tear the sheets and spend our pay.

Just one suck-o and then belay,
Tomorrow, boys, is our payday.