# Sea Shanties, Folk Punk and the Drinking Song Tradition > Stan Rogers' 'Barrett's Privateers', The Pogues and the shanty revival: why songs built for hard work and hard drinking fit punk so naturally. - Source: https://menvafan.net/pirat/sea-shanties-and-folk-punk/ - Section: Pirates - Language: en - Published: 2026-10-17 **In short:** The article argues that sea shanties and punk share a functional DNA: both are participatory, chorus-driven forms built for a room full of people, often celebrating failure and the underdog. It traces the connection through Stan Rogers' 'Barrett's Privateers' (1976), The Pogues' punk-folk marriage on early albums like Red Roses for Me (1984) and Rum Sodomy & the Lash (1985), and the current online shanty revival. The point is not nostalgia but continuity: songs survive by being sung, and the shanty shape fits a distorted guitar as well as an acoustic one. There is a version of punk that lives in the corner of a pub with a fiddle player, a badly tuned guitar and a room full of people who all know the chorus. It is not a new idea, but it keeps coming back, and the current shanty revival has made the connection impossible to ignore. ## Barrett's Privateers: the song that refuses to die Stan Rogers was a Canadian folk singer, not a punk, and he died young in a plane fire in 1983. But "Barrett's Privateers", from his 1976 album *Fogarty's Cove*, has become the kind of song that crosses over because it does what punk does: it tells a loser's story with enormous energy and no self-pity. A young man signs up for a privateering voyage, the ship is a wreck, the crew is a shambles, and the whole enterprise ends in failure and bitterness. The chorus is a shout, the verses are a march, and the language is plain and hard. You can find the song on [Discogs](https://www.discogs.com/master/391105-Stan-Rogers-Fogartys-Cove) and read more about Rogers on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Rogers). What matters here is the structure: a verse that moves the story forward, a chorus that everyone can bellow, and a rhythm that feels like work. That is a shanty shape, even if Rogers wrote it as a modern folk song. Punk bands have been playing it for decades because it fits a distorted guitar as well as it fits an acoustic one. ## The Pogues and the punk-folk marriage The Pogues are the obvious reference point, and for good reason. They took the energy and attitude of punk and put it behind banjo, tin whistle and accordion, with Shane MacGowan's voice somewhere between a snarl and a lament. Their early records, particularly *Red Roses for Me* (1984) and *Rum Sodomy & the Lash* (1985), are full of songs about drinking, sailing, soldiers and bad luck. They did not invent folk punk, but they made it legible to people who would never have bought a folk record. The Pogues' own history is well documented on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pogues), and their discography is on [Discogs](https://www.discogs.com/artist/83168-The-Pogues). The key point is that they treated traditional material and their own songs the same way: loud, fast, and with a sense of urgency that came straight from the punk scene they grew out of. When they played a shanty, it sounded like a shanty, but it also sounded like a band that had just come off a stage in a squatted building. ## The shanty revival is not new Sea shanties have been revived before. The folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s brought them into coffee houses and festival tents, often cleaned up and presented as heritage. What is happening now is different in tone: it is online, it is participatory, and it is less reverent. The recent wave, often associated with social media and with groups like The Longest Johns, has put shanties back in front of people who have never pulled a rope in their lives. That is fine. Songs survive by being sung. For background on the shanty tradition itself, [Wikipedia's article on sea shanties](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_shanty) is a reasonable starting point. The important thing to remember is that shanties were work songs first. They were designed to coordinate labour, to set a pace, and to make a hard job slightly more bearable. The call-and-response structure, the simple choruses and the repetitive rhythms are not accidents. They are functional. ## Why drinking songs fit punk so well A drinking song and a punk song share a lot of DNA. Both are built for a room full of people, both rely on a chorus that can be learned in one listen, and both are more interested in communal energy than in technical polish. A punk show and a folk session have the same basic social function: a group of people gets together, makes a lot of noise, and feels less alone for an hour or two. There is also the matter of subject matter. Drinking songs are often about failure, poverty, bad decisions and the consolations of friendship. That is not far from punk's usual territory. The difference is that the drinking song usually has a tune you can hum and a chorus you can join. Punk has always had that too, from the Clash's singalong moments to the street punk bands who understood that a football-terrace chorus is a weapon. - Both forms are participatory: the audience is part of the performance. - Both favour repetition and simple, memorable hooks. - Both often celebrate the underdog and the loser. - Both are portable: you can play them with whatever instruments are available. ## The folk punk lineage Folk punk as a label covers a lot of ground, from the acoustic punk of the 1980s to the more recent wave of bands who mix crusty punk with traditional instruments. The common thread is a refusal to accept that folk music belongs in a museum and punk belongs in a basement. Bands like The Pogues, and later acts on labels such as [Plan-It-X Records](https://www.discogs.com/label/107289-Plan-It-X-Records), showed that you could have both. The shanty revival fits into that lineage neatly. A song like "Barrett's Privateers" is not a traditional shanty, but it behaves like one. It has been adopted by punk audiences because it gives them what they want: a story, a shout, and a reason to put an arm around the person next to them. That is not a compromise. It is the point. ## What to listen for If you are coming to this from punk and want to explore the folk side, start with the Pogues' *Rum Sodomy & the Lash* and Stan Rogers' *Fogarty's Cove*. If you are coming from folk and want to hear what punk does with it, look for live recordings of punk bands covering shanties. The transition is not as strange as it looks. The volume changes, the instruments change, but the function is the same: a room, a chorus, and a brief escape from the day. The shanty revival will pass, as revivals do, but the songs will stay. They have survived worse. And the next time you hear a crowd shouting a chorus about a doomed ship or a bad night out, remember that this is not a nostalgia act. It is the oldest kind of punk there is: people making noise together because the alternative is silence. ## FAQ ### What is 'Barrett's Privateers' and why do punk bands play it? It is a song by Canadian folk singer Stan Rogers, from his 1976 album Fogarty's Cove. It tells a loser's story with enormous energy and no self-pity, and its shout-along chorus and march-like rhythm make it fit a distorted guitar as well as an acoustic one. ### Which Pogues albums show their punk-folk style? Their early records, particularly Red Roses for Me (1984) and Rum Sodomy & the Lash (1985), are full of songs about drinking, sailing, soldiers and bad luck, played with punk urgency behind banjo, tin whistle and accordion. ### Are sea shanties the same as folk punk? No, but they share a lineage. Shanties were work songs designed to coordinate labour, with call-and-response and simple choruses. Folk punk, as a label, covers bands who mix punk with traditional instruments and refuse to keep folk in a museum; the shanty revival fits into that lineage because songs like 'Barrett's Privateers' behave like shanties even though they are modern folk songs. ### Why do drinking songs fit punk so well? Both are built for a room full of people, rely on a chorus that can be learned in one listen, and favour communal energy over technical polish. They also often share subject matter: failure, poverty, bad decisions and the consolations of friendship.