Posty revives sea shanties on Tiktok
The folk songs were usually used to inspire camaraderie among shipworkers – but they’ve found a new youthful audience on Tiktok thanks to a signing Scottish postman.
Social media platform Tiktok’slatesttrendisseashanties, thetraditionalsongsoncesung to make hard labour at sea a little more bearable.
It's being dubbed #Shantytok by social media users, and seashantieshavebecomecommonplace on Tiktok since the start of the year.
The platform – which allows users to share creative video clips–hasbeeninundatedwith people’sownrenditionsoftraditional shanties, and those that havegoneviralhavebeenincorporatedintoothervideosinsurprising ways.
Nathan Evans, a 26-yearold postman who resides near Glasgow, could be considered the “source”.
On December 27 , he uploaded a video to Tiktok of himself singingaversionof19thcentury New Zealand folk song, Wellerman.
That post racked up millions of views – "It went wild, I don't really know what happened," Evans told cnet – and thesinger’sfollowercountsince then has increased by nearly 800 per cent.
The song tells the story of whalers waiting on a resupply ship, its title in reference to The Weller Bros, an Australian whalingcompanythatoperated alongthesoutherncoastofnew Zealand from 1830 to 1840.
Evansisnostrangertomaking music,andbeforehisnewfound fame regularly posted videos of himself singing Scottish folk songs and his own material.
Other users have used Tiktok to virtually duet with Evans – through the app’s split-screen function which allows you to record over the top on an existing clip – adding harmonies, instrumentation, and in once
case even reworking the song into a techno club banger.
Nathan told the BBC: "It is crazy and has gone much further than I ever thought it would go.
"I did a sea shanty back in July 2020, just because someone
had asked in a comment under one of my videos. So I uploaded that and it reached 1.1m views. I thought there must have been a demand.
"Peoplewerelookingforward to more and they were commenting
underneath every videoafterthatsayingcanyousing this one, can you sing that one itwasjustrequestsfrompeople for me to sing them."