Digital Tradition Mirror

The Chinee Bumboatman

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

The Chinee Bumboatman

I'll sing ye a story o' trouble an' woe,
That'll cause ye to shudder and shiver,
Concernin' a Chinese bumboat man that sailed the Yangtze river.
He wuz a heathen o' high degree, as the joss-house records show,
His family name was wing chang loo,
But the sailors all called him jim crow-ee-eye-oh-ee-eye!

Hitch-y-kum, kitch-y-kum, yah, yah, yah
Sailormen no likee me
No savy the story of Wing Chang Loo
Too much of the bob-er-eye-ee, kye-eye

Now Wing Chang Loo he fell in love, with a gal called Ah Chu Fong,
She `ad two eyes like pumpkin seeds, an' slippers two inches long,
Rut ah Chu Fong loved a pirate bold with all her heart an' liver,
He wuz the capitan of a double-decked junk,
An' he sailed the Yangtze river-eye-iver-eye!
When wing Chang Loo he heard o' this, he swore an' `orrible oath:
Rif Ah Chu marries that pirate bold, I `ll make sausage meat o' them both!S
So he hoi sted his blood-red battle flag, put into the Yangtze river,
He steered her east an' south an' west,
Till that pirate he did diskiver-eye-iver-eye!

The drums they beat to quarters an' the cannons did loudly roar,
The red `ot dumplin `s flew like lead, an' the scuppers they ran with gore.
The pirate paced the quarterdeck with never a shake nor a shiver,
He wuz shot in the stern wid' a hard-boiled egg,
That penetrated his liver-eye-iver-eye!

The dyin' pirate feebly cried, "We'll give the foe more shot,
If I can't marry Ah Chu Fong, then Wing Chang loo shall not!"
When a pease-pudden `ot hit the bumboat's side, it caused a `orrible scene,
It upset a pot of `ot bow-wow soup,
An' exploded the magaye-eenee-ayeeenee!

JY

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!