Sea Songs (242KB)

Yellow Girls

I first heard "Yellow Girls" sung by a certain Jim McGhean (my spelling) on Wally Whyton's Folk Music programme in May 1983. I immediately transcribed it and very much enjoy singing it probably it allows me to thunder it out at my maximum power (well over the red line and practically off-scale). This is one of a trio of excessively loud songs which Brian Kelly and I loved to do one after the other. We'd start off singing together with The Holy Ground followed by "Johnny Comes Down from Hilo", which Brian sang solo and then finished off with Yellow Girls by yours truly also as a solo. Each song was sung louder than the previous and believe me, we "sang" Holy Ground loud enough: On one memorable occasion when singing in the Irish Pub in Hanover, Germany, for the first and only time, we cleared the first eight rows of the audience whilst maltreating these songs, and that without amplifiers!
The song itself is an amusing account of a seaman making his acquaintance with the most delightful of merchant's daughters in far-off parts and his wish of towing the whole caboodle ".... back to Liverpool to give the boys a show".
"Yellow Girls" has been recorded by:
 Geoff Grainger on "Mostly at Sea"