Old sea shanty storms British top 40 chart

LONDON • A 19th-century sea shanty has landed a spot in the British top 40 as traditional sailor songs are enjoying a new wave of popularity, thanks to the popular short video app TikTok.

The song Wellerman performed by The Longest Johns, a band from Bristol in western England, is now at No. 37 in the Official Chart, which takes into account streaming of music. The song is at No. 1 in Spotify's viral 50, which includes social media shares, in the United States and Britain and at No. 2 globally.

Wellerman is believed to have been written in New Zealand in the mid-19th century and tells the tale of sailors waging an epic battle with a whale they are hunting.

The traditional genre has captured attention during coronavirus lockdowns, particularly due to a Scottish postman, Nathan Evans, who posted his performance of Wellerman on TikTok last year.

The video has now been viewed more than eight million times and it sparked a worldwide trend known as "ShantyTok".

Music stars seized on the trend and performed their own versions.

Pop singers Gary Barlow and Ronan Keating sang it together, while composer Andrew Lloyd Webber made a TikTok video of himself playing a keyboard accompaniment.

Evans puts the song's popularity down to the lockdown, saying shanties were originally sung to "bring everybody together" and this strikes a chord when people are isolated. "Especially in this time when everybody's stuck at home, they're doing their remote working - they can join in, and it kind of brings everybody together."

Evans has signed a record deal with Polydor and released his own version of Wellerman as a single last week.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE