A swashbucklin’ oral history of how sea shanties took over TikTok

🎶 There once was a ship that put to sea, this swashbucklin’ history of sea shanties 🎶
 By 
Nikolay Nikolov
 on 
A swashbucklin’ oral history of how sea shanties took over TikTok
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If you’re not already singing along to a bunch of 19th-century songs about whale hunting, then dive into this sea of shanties.

British group The Longest Johns helped the digital revival of sea shanties with a 2018 recording of "Soon May the Wellerman Come,’ which has since seen nearly 30 million streams on YouTube and Spotify. They help us deconstruct how and why those old songs of isolation struck such a chord for so many today.

Topics Social Media

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Nikolay Nikolov

Senior Producer, London.


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