High Barbary

"High Barbary" is an American take on a much older ballad called "The George Aloe and the Sweepstake", which dates back to the 1590s. The original tells of an incident between two merchant vessels and a French attacker; in the 1790s, a new set of American lyrics emerged, detailing a battle against a crew of Barbary pirates.^[1] Though the original song was a ballad, the newer version was also sometimes used as a shanty, and was popular among both British and American sailors.

Although is not included on the band's official song list, the song has made appearances in various livestreams, particularly Sea of Thieves streams.

Factoids

The Barbary Coast of western North Africa (thus named because of the Berber people in the area) was known as a haven for piracy from the 16th to the 19th century. Pirates sailing primarily from the ports of Salé, Rabat, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli preyed on merchant ships and coastal towns, predominantly in the western Mediterranean, although attacks occurred along West Africa's Atlantic coast and in Europe as far north as Iceland. While they would take what goods they could, their main objective was usually captives to be sold in the Middle Eastern and North African slave trade.

By the beginning of the 18th century, several governments were systematically paying ransoms and bribes to return captured citizens and stave off further attacks. As the century went on, the scope of the attacks lessened somewhat as more powerful European countries threatened naval retaliation and forced the Barbary states to make peace, but piracy in the region did not entirely cease until France's 1830 conquest of Algiers.

Although the Black Flag version does say "look the weather in the lee", it's unclear what this would mean. Other versions of the lyrics typically use the more sensical, "look the weather and the lee". "Weather" was used as a synonym for windward (opposite of leeward), so looking ahead, astern, to the weather, and to the lee would be to look around the ship in all directions.

Blow high, blow low is an old American slang phrase meaning "Whatever may happen".^[2]

Lyrics

The Johns mostly follow the lyrics of the version appearing in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.

Look ahead, look astern, look the weather in the lee
(Blow high, blow low, and so sail we)
I see a wreck to windward and a lofty ship to lee
(A-sailing down along the coast of High Barbary) [continues throughout]

"Oh, are you a pirate or a man o' war?" cried we
"Oh no! I'm not a pirate, but a man-o-war," cried he

We'll back up our topsails and heave our vessel to
For we have got some letters to be carried home by you

For broadside, for broadside, they fought all on the main
Until at last the frigate shot the pirate's mast away

With cutlass and gun, oh, we fought for hours three
The ship it was their coffin and their grave it was the sea

Recordings

YouTube Videos

All Shanties from AC4 Black Flag Supercut / Playlist

Chill Streams

Banjon Banjoff - 21/01/2022

Gaming Streams

↑ https://www.contemplator.com/england/barbary.html
↑ "blow, v.1." OED Online, Oxford University Press, December 2022, www.oed.com/view/Entry/20523. Accessed 3 January 2023.

[1] ttps://www.contemplator.com/england/barbary.html

[2] "blow, v.1." OED Online, Oxford University Press, December 2022, www.oed.com/view/Entry/20523. Accessed 3 January 2023.

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