On Board of the Kangaroo also known as On Board the Kangaroo, Aboard the Kangaroo, Good Ship Kangaroo and Bristol Sea Shanty is generally regarded as an English shanty.
[1] It was composed by Londoner Harry Clifton, reviewed in the press in July 1864, and published as sheet music in 1865.
[2][3] The song is sung from the perspective of a mariner who worked on a ship called the Kangaroo, which was probably SS Kangaroo, an 1853 Scottish cargo steamer that foundered in a gale off Rhoscolyn, Wales in January 1862.
[4][5] It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 925.
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