Come Down You Roses/Blood Red Roses
Lyrics and music traditional, Arrangement by Darcy Nair
Performed by The Pyrates Royale on Tales of the Brigantine

Our boots and clothes are all in pawn
And it's flamin' drafty 'round Cape Horn.
My dear old mother said to me,
My dearest son, come home from sea.

Go down, you blood red roses, go down.
Go down, you blood red roses, go down.

It's 'round Cape Horn we all must go
'Round Cape Horn in the frost and snow.
You've got your advance and to sea you'll go,
To chase them whales through the frost and snow.

It's growl you may but go you must
If you growl too much you're head they'll bust.
Just one more pull and that will do,
For we're the boys to kick her through.

Background by Darcy Nair: Notes: This arrangement was inspired by The Boarding Party's presentation of "Come Down You Roses" ('Tis Our Sailing Time, 1983) a shanty collected in the Bahamas in 1935 by Alan Lomax, Zora Neale Hurston, and Elizabeth Barnicle. The Boarding Party's version didn't tell a story, so I blended in the lyrics to the like-minded shanty "Blood Red Roses" to give the piece more structure.