> Folk Music > Songs > I Wish I Was With Nancy

I Wish I Was With Nancy

[ Roud 13250 ; VWML CJS2/10/2905 ; Mudcat 174227 ; trad.]

According to the Folk Song and Music Hall website, In the Strand / I Wish I Was With Nacy, written by Frank Hall and composed by Emmett as a parody of the well-known American song I Wish I Was in Dixie, was first published in 1861, and was performed by E.W. Mackney. It was collected by Cecil Sharp in April 1914 from the singing of Watchet sailor John Short who sang it as a capstan shanty.

Tom Brown and chorus sang I Wish I Was With Nancy in 2011 on the anthology of shanties collected by Cecil Sharp from the Watchet sailor John Short, Short Sharp Shanties Vol. 2. The anthology’s online notes commented:

Not published by Sharp (see note re his editorial policy under Blow Boys, Blow)—we have no idea if Short gave it to Terry. Obviously the tune is the American Civil War song I Wish I Was in Dixie which, like Maryland, as Whall observes, were immediately transformed into shanties. Whall comments on its great popularity and Hugill concurs—“I can vouch that its popularity lasted down to modern times.” All shanty versions, according to Hugill, were “distinctly ribald”. Short’s set of words (our first two verses) parodies the original only in the chorus and second verse: “I wish I was in the land of cotton.”

The original song, from the pen of Dan Emmet in 1859—when he was with the Dan Bryant Minstrels, was written as a new walk-around for the end of the minstrel performances. The first performance in the Southern states was in Charleston, South Carolina, in December 1860, but it was in New Orleans in March 1861 that Dixie was first accepted as a Southern war song. However, soldiers from both sides wrote endless parodies: various sets of rewrites were also widespread and, as evidenced here, it also went to sea!

There is an almost a naive charm in the heart-felt chorus to this shanty but we admit to going (almost) over the top with this one and enjoying ourselves with the arrangement—even Keith [Kendrick]’s sousaphone part—and then we couldn’t resist letting Jeff [Warner]’s banjo have its fling—ably surrounded by Brian [Willoughby]’s guitar.

Lyrics

Tom Brown sings I Wish I Was With Nancy

Chorus (after each verse):
I wish I was with Nancy! Aye yo, aye yo,
On the second floor with two bob more
I’d live and die with Nancy, aye yo, aye yo,
I’d live and die with Nancy.

Well the thing that first put the hearts in a flutter
were her Balmoral boots as she cruised the gutter
Down the Strand (×4)

O I wish that I was in the land of cotton,
Tickling up the old girls bottom
Down the Strand (×4)

We’re outward bound from Nancy dear,
Farewell ye girls, we’ll be back next year.
Down the Strand (×4)

But when we reach Columbia’s shore
Of them pretty girls we’ll think no more
Of the Strand (×4)