Greenland Whale Fisheries

[1] In most of the versions collected from oral sources, the song opens up giving a date for the events that it describes (usually between 1823 and 1853).

Some modern versions, including the ones recorded by Judy Collins and Theodore Bikel, The Chad Mitchell Trio, and later by The Pogues, flip the captain's expression of grief to make him regret losing his catch even more than losing his crew.

In the version popularized by The Weavers and Peter, Paul and Mary, a shanty recorded by Alan Lomax from a Bahamian fisherman[5] is appended, which begins, "When the whale gets strike, and the line run down, and the whale makes a flounder with her tail, and the boat capsized, and we lost our darling man, No more, no more Greenland for you you, Pray Boys, No more, no more Greenland for you."....

"[6] Folk singer Paul Kaplan recorded a song with the same tune under the title "Call Me the Whale".

[7] In the Futurama episode "The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz", Bender, in an ironic state of soberness, sings a snippet of the song.