Rolling Down the River
(Rolling Up, Rolling Down)
I once was a rigger & I worked like
hell
Rolling up, rolling down
But now I’m working with the OCL
And go rolling down the river
Rolling up, rolling down,
We’ll all get drunk in Tilbury Town
In twenty four hours we'll turn around
And go rolling down the river
The work is
good and the wages fine
When you take a trip on a container line
The cargo
comes in TEUs
That's a twenty-foot box boys filled with booze
When I
first saw a TEU
I wondered where they stored the crew
There’s a
Tilbury girl called Kettle Jane,
First on the boil then off again,
She’s got a
friend called Teapot Anne
When she's well brewed she'll take a man
Those
Tilbury girls go round in pairs
You'll never catch them unawares
But at the
dockyard gates when the work is done
You can pick 'em up boys, one by one
©
Jack Forbes 1982
I wrote and recorded the song 'Rolling down the
River' in 1982 for a radio programme
about Tilbury Docks. It has since been used in an Educational Drama production,
a Folk Theatre presentation and also as a Morris Dance, as well as being sung
all over the world.
It can be heard wherever there are shanty sessions at folk festivals and
festivals of the sea.
There is an American version and a Polish version (sung of course in Polish).