Last Updated on 11 July 2024
Sea shanties thrived during the 18th and 19th centuries. Some go back as far as the 1400s and some are very recent. This genre of song has recently become popular thanks to TikTok and pirate-themed movies and TV shows. A typical sea shanty is a work song sung by sailors while they haul lines, etc., since it could help them keep the rhythm necessary to do the job, or sometimes just relieve the drudgery of repetitive tasks. A standard shanty was a type of call-and-response song, with the verses sung by an individual and the choruses sung by the group. The subject could be anything of interest to the sailors.
Here is a list of sea shanties, ranked by popularity as much as I could determine it. There is also a YouTube playlist.
| Rank | Song Title | Example |
| 1 | Drunken Sailor | |
| 2 | Leave Her, Johnny | |
| 3 | Randy Dandy-Oh | |
| 4 | Roll the Old Chariot Along (A Drop of Nelson’s Blood) | |
| 5 | Barrett’s Privateers | |
| 6 | Rolling Down to Old Maui | |
| 7 | Spanish Ladies | |
| 8 | Haul Away Joe | |
| 9 | Blow the Man Down | |
| 10 | Santiana | |
| 11 | Don’t Forget Your Old Shipmate | |
| 12 | The Bonny Ship “The Diamond” | |
| 13 | Lowlands Away | |
| 14 | The Coasts of High Barbary | |
| 15 | Eliza Lee | |
| 16 | Old Billy Riley | |
| 17 | Bully in the Alley | |
| 18 | Mingulay Boat Song | |
| 19 | Cockles and Mussels (Molly Malone) | |
| 20 | Fiddler’s Green | |
| 21 | The Wellerman | |
| 22 | Roll the Wood Pile Down | |
| 23 | Haul Boys Haul | |
| 24 | Johnny (Tom)’s Gone to Hilo | |
| 25 | Dead Horse | |
| 26 | Blood Red Roses | |
| 27 | Roll, Boys, Roll | |
| 28 | Lowlands Low | |
| 29 | Greenland Whale Fisheries | |
| 30 | Where Am I To Go M’Johnnies | |
| 31 | Cape Cod Girls | |
| 32 | Pique la Baleine | |
| 33 | South Australia | |
| 34 | The Wild Goose | |
| 35 | Hard on the Beach Oar | |
| 36 | Paddy Doyle’s Boots | |
| 37 | Sally Brown | |
| 38 | Northwest Passage | |
| 39 | Ben Backstay | |
| 40 | Rolling Down the Bay to Juliana | |
| 41 | Boney Was a Warrior | |
| 42 | All For Me Grog | |
| 43 | The Maid of Amsterdam | |
| 44 | Fire Down Below | |
| 45 | Turkish Revelry | |
| 46 | John Kanaka | |
| 47 | Botany Bay | |
| 48 | Haul Away the Bowline | |
| 49 | Bye-Bye My Roseanna | |
| 50 | Roll Down | |
| 51 | The Flying Dutchman | |
| 52 | Wild Goose Shanty | |
| 53 | Rye Whiskey | |
| 54 | Ring Down Below | |
| 55 | Sloop John B Sails | |
| 56 | Bones in the Ocean | |
| 57 | Maid on the Shore | |
| 58 | Pump Shanty | |
| 59 | Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me) | |
| 60 | The Banks of Newfoundland | |
| BONUS | The Kittyman |
