Barnacle Bill the Sailor

[1] There are several versions of the bawdy song in the Gordon "Inferno" Collection at the Library of Congress folklife archive.

Later versions feature the eponymous "Barnacle Bill", a fictional character loosely based on a 19th-century San Francisco sailor and Gold Rush miner named William Bernard.

This version was also recorded on May 21, 1930 by Bix Beiderbecke and Hoagy Carmichael with Carson Robison on vocals and released as a Victor 78, V-38139-A and 25371.

[3] According to Philip R. Evans, Bix Beiderbecke's biographer, in the second chorus of this recording, violinist Joe Venuti can be heard singing "Barnacle Bill the Shit-head," either to express his attitude toward the record producer, or typical of his wacky sense of humor.

The tune has inspired a Fleischer Studios Betty Boop cartoon and two films, as well as the name of a rock on Mars.

Louis Jordan and the Tympany Five (then known as The Elks Rendezvous Band) recorded a clean version in 1938.

A later Fleischer Popeye cartoon, Beware of Barnacle Bill (1935), is a mock operetta based around a toned-down version of the song.

"To hell with the floor, I can't fuck that," Said Ballochy Bill the sailor.

[6] Among them is an undated transcript of Abraham Brown The Sailor, noted as being to the tune of My Heart and Lute.

open the door and let him in, Says this very nice young lady, And where am I to sleep to night, Says Abraham Brown the Sailor

You may sleep on my soft puncushion, Says this very nice young lady, And I've a pin, I'll run it in, Says Abraham Brown the Sailor

I feel it rise between my — Says this very nice young lady, It's in your — up to the rim, Says Abraham Brown the Sailor