According to music critic Geoffrey Crankshaw:"Newbolt was particularly drawn to England's naval traditions and to the lure of the sea in general.
"Some general features of [Stanford's] style are readily grasped: for instance, he favoured swift forward movement; rhetoric is present, but never overdone.
He promised that should it be beaten in the hour of England's gravest need, he and his fleet would reappear in the English Channel to repel the invaders; as they did the Spanish Armada in 1588.
It has been recorded by, among others, Peter Dawson, John Shirley-Quirk and Sir Thomas Allen; either in the original version, or in an arrangement for voice and piano.
Haydn Wood (1882-1959), best known for his light music, made an orchestral arrangement of Songs of the Sea, known variously as Stanford Rhapsody and as Westward Ho.