[Alternately: “A Night by de Galley Fire”].

To listen to this song (and others) on the Artists Respond to Juba Site, Click Here and/or Here.

The music was taken from Russell’s song “A Life on the Ocean Wave” (published in the 1840s with original lyrics by Epps Sargent). Of the three versions we know to be published between 1842 and 1852, there are varying degrees of fidelity to Russell’s basic conceit. Mahar notes that the lyrics in the 1848 version published by William Hall and Son at New York compare the life of tending a galley fire directly to the life of a cook aboard a ship (254), but this direct comparison is not present in the version published by B. Williams at London (date unknown). The latter version bears no direct references to any aspect of railroad life, rather, it seems to be an ode to the various dishes (“pork, cheese, an’ a pie in brine”) the cook is preparing. For a detailed consideration of the William Hall edition of the song, see Mahar pp.254-6.

The song was immensely popular on both sides of the Atlantic from 1842-1852 but its popularity did not endure during the twentieth century. There are no known recorded versions of the song. Russell’s song has come back into prominence and, since the 1970s, has been the unofficial song of the United States Merchant Marine Academy Regimental Band.

Works Cited:

Mahar, William J. Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture. Chicago: Illinois UP, 1999.

Mark Turner