Original by Toby Quast
A shanty waltz is a silly idea clap clap
Hard to believe that you can’t dance with sea legs
See lads! With a peg leg, or when drunk on beer,
A shanty waltz is a silly idea!
When I was a young lad, I had only two loves
The beckoning sea called to me
But my feet sat in first, the fate of the worst
For my other love, dance, was at odds with the sea
A shanty waltz is a silly idea clap clap
Hard to believe that you can’t dance with sea legs
see lads! With a peg leg, or when drunk on beer,
A shanty waltz is a silly idea!
It took me a short week to find myself steady
On my first job swabbing the deck
All-the-time bent down swabbing and I wasn’t ready
To lose my plié to a bloody bad back
A shanty waltz is a silly idea clap clap
Hard to believe that you can’t dance with sea legs
see lads! With a peg leg, or when drunk on beer,
A shanty waltz is a silly idea!
I would get so badly beaten
All for interrupting a “nap” (“keep it down!”)
Sure, I’d do it whilst they were a sleepin’
but I needed the quiet to practice my tap
A shanty waltz is a silly idea clap clap
Hard to believe that you can’t dance with sea legs
see lads! With a peg leg, or when drunk on beer,
A shanty waltz is a silly idea!
You know what’ll ruin your day?
If your ship’ll get shot up by brits
You’ll find that you’ve lost your pas de bourree
To a cannonball shot by a man with the shits
A shanty waltz is a silly idea clap clap
Hard to believe that you can’t dance with sea legs
see lads! With a peg leg, or when drunk on beer,
A shanty waltz is a silly idea!
