Fisher Boy / O the Bonny Fisher Lad

[ Roud 3150 ; Ballad Index StoR103 ; trad.]

J. Collingwood Bruce, John Stokoe: Northumbrian Minstrelsy John Stokoe: Songs and Ballads of Northern England

Eliza Carthy and The Kings of Calicutt (Andi Wells, Barnaby Stradling, Saul Rose and Maclaine Colston) sang the love song from the North East, Fisher Boy, in 1997 on their eponymous album Eliza Carthy and The Kings of Calicutt. This track was also included in 2003 on Eliza’s anthology The Definitive Collection.

John Conolly sang Bonnie Fisher Lad in 1998 on his and Pete Sumner’s Fellside album Trawlertown. He noted:

Laura Smith, author of […] Music of the Waters [1888], scoured the Sailors’ Homes and boardinghouses of Newcastle-upon-Tyne during the 1880’s, in search of old sea-songs. For her pains, she was later taken to task by the old Master-Mariner and Shanty collector Captain W.B. Whall, who obviously felt that sailors were unlikely to render their choicest material within earshot of a lady.

Nevertheless, her collection contains a wealth of interesting songs, including this little gem from the East Coast, with its sprightly and typically Northumbrian tune.

Moira Craig and Carolyn Robson sang O the Bonny Fisher Lad on their 2016 CD Both Sides the Tweed. They noted:

The young lass in the song is gathering cockles for her mother when she meets the ‘bonny fisher lad’ and vows she will have him simply because she is ‘a fisher lass’.

Frankie Archer sang O the Bonny Fisherlad on her 2023 EP Never So Red. She noted:

O the Bonny Fisherlad for me is just an explosion of Joy. Someone proper fancies the bonny fisherlad and isn’t afraid to tell people, wants to shout it from the rooftops. This for me is a song about fun, freedom, expression, innocence and love. I don’t really imagine the person singing about the bonny fisherlad in any particular way. The point is that whoever they are, whichever way they identify, they feel free to express their love unashamedly and joyfully.

Lyrics

Eliza Carthy sings Fisher Boy

O the bonny fisher boy
That brings the fishes from the sea
O the bonny fisher boy
The fisher boy got hold of me

On Bamboroughshire’s rocky shore
Just as you enter Boulmer Raw
There lives the bonny fisher boy
The fisher boy that beats them all

O the bonny fisher boy
That brings the fishes from the sea
O the bonny fisher boy
The fisher boy got hold of me

My mother sent me out one day
To gather cockles from the sea
Before I had been long away
The fisher boy fell in with me

A sailor I will never marry
Nor soldier for he’s got no brass
But I will have a fisher boy
Because I am a fisher’s lass

(repeat first two verses)

Frankie Archer sings O the Bonny Fisherlad

O the bonny fisherlad
That brings the fishes from the sea
O the bonny fisherlad
The fisherlad got haad a me

O on Bamburgh’s rocky shore
Just as you enter Boulmer Raw
There lives the bonny fisherlad
The fisherlad that bangs em all