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It's busk ye, my lads, get you up on deck,
And take up your stations for hauling the nets,
And mind you pull together, boys, all through the night,
And sweat in your oilskins until it's daylight,
At the heaving and hauling and shaking the nets.
It's when we start hauling we're living in hopes,
The boy in the locker, the lads on the ropes,
And the fellas in the hold who are pulling the nets,
And shaking the herring out onto the deck,
And it's heaving and hauling and shaking the nets.
It's net after net is pulled up from the sea,
With a haul and a shake and a one, two, and three,
And the herring are a-piling around your sea boots,
And slithering and sliding down into the chutes,
And we're heaving and hauling and shaking the nets.
It's hour after hour we are hauling away,
All through the long night till the dawn of the day,
The skipper's in the wheelhouse he's on the R T,
And the cook's in the galley a brewing the tea,
And we're finished with hauling and shaking the nets.
See more songs by Ewan MacColl.
A variant was recorded by Jim Payne and Fergus O'Byrne (Wave Over Wave, Old And New Songs Of Atlantic Canada, 1995). ECMA Roots/Traditional Artist Nominee (1997).
