All in a day of doing writer’s research
What writer hasn’t fallen down a rabbit hole of research?
This one started innocently with song lyrics from Sloop John B, used in my novel Love and Other Incurable Ailments, a story set in the fishing village of Ocracoke.
A fellow writer cautioned me that I might need permission to use the lyrics, supposedly from The Beach Boys. Many a writer has ended up in legal trouble for quoting song lyrics without permission! I knew they didn’t write the song, but I took a delightful detour through the history of this song anyway.
“Sloop John B” is actually more than three centuries old, so that means it is very much in the public domain, and therefore I can quote the lyrics. And the comic, sea-soaked tale perfectly fits my story’s world.
The Origins of the Sloop and the real John B.
“The John B. Sails” began as a song sung in the 1600s by Bahamian sailors who were crewmen on sponge boats and mail sloops, lamenting a miserable voyage on the sloop John B. The boat was real, and its crew’s drunken misadventures in Nassau became legendary.
Sloops were precarious 16-foot vessels with a 5-person crew that would sail hundreds of miles without a chart. John Bethel, a Welshman, lived in a Bahamian colony in 1647 where he built and sailed his sloop until it was wrecked.
The lyrics we know—kind of.
In 1916, writer Richard Le Gallienne published “The John B. Sails” in Harper’s Monthly Magazine, describing it as “a Nassau song.” He included five verses and a chorus, later reprinting two verses in his 1917 novel Pieces of Eight. The lyrics tell a droll story of chaos at sea with arrests and brawls.
Come on the sloop John B, my grandfather and me,
’Round Nassau town we did roam;
Drinking all night, got into a fight,
Well, I feel so breakup, I want to go home.So hoist up the John B’s sail,
See how the mainsail set;
Send for the captain ashore,
Let me go home.Let me go home,
I want to go home,
Well, I feel so breakup,
I want to go home.
But how does one feel breakup?
In Bahamian (bu-HAME-ee-in) dialect, “breakup” means miserable or hungover. The tone is comic and weary—the universal cry of “get me off this cursed boat!”
Apparently there’s also a forgotten third verse, although the “stewardess” reference puzzles me.
The stewardess she got stewed,
Ran ’round the poop deck nude
Constable had to come and take her away.
Sheriff Johnstone please let me alone
I feel so breakup, I want to go home.
Early Folk Versions (1930s–1950s)
As “The John B. Sails” spread through the Caribbean and southern United States, folklorists recorded Bahamian singers performing the song. The title and lyrics varied over time—sometimes called “I Want to Go Home,” or “Wreck of the John B.” Different singers added, dropped, or moralized lyrics, adding, “Never go sailing with John B again” and “I never got paid.”
Listen to a Bahamian version of the song:
Then The Weavers (1950) and The Kingston Trio (1958) brought the song into the American folk revival. Their versions kept the structure but softened the dialect and Americanized the tune for modern ears:
The poor cook he got drunk,
Broke up the people’s trunk,
Constable come and took him away.
Sheriff John Stone,
Why don’t you leave me alone?
Well, I feel so breakup, I wanna go home.
When Brian Wilson and Al Jardine recorded “Sloop John B” for the Beach Boys’ album Pet Sounds, they used the Kingston Trio’s version as a framework but transformed it harmonically and emotionally. What began as a comic Bahamian folk tune became a yearning pop masterpiece about homesickness and disillusionment. In their version,“breakup” became “broke up”, a small change that reflects how songs evolve in oral tradition.
Why the Song Matters to My Novel
I wove the lyrics of “Sloop John B” into a scene set on Ocracoke Island, a fishing village in the Outer Banks of N. Carolina.
Like the sailors of the John B, the main character Serenity finds herself adrift, weathering emotional turmoil, longing for home, and trying to right what’s gone wrong. The song’s blend of humor, fatigue, and heartache feels like the perfect echo of her journey.
I love how music and research led me down this unexpected path. The John B. may have been a disastrous voyage, but following its wake turned out to be one of my favorite writing adventures.
