Sea shanties are your soundtrack of 2021. Seriously.
“I think it’s because everyone is feeling alone and stuck at home during this pandemic and it gives everyone a sense of unity and friendship,” Evans, the 26-year-old vocalist from Airdrie, Scotland, informed CNN.
“And shanties are great because they bring loads of people together and anyone can join in. You don’t even need to be able to sing to join in on a sea shanty!”
It holds true the tunes are quite appealing, which’s by style. Shanties are a kind of work tune, circulated by workers, typically underpaid and overworked, to minimize the uniformity of their labor.
Uniformity and financial unpredictability? In our 2021? Possibly it’s not a lot of a stretch after all.
And all of this happens because one person sees what another has done, and decides to join in. In fact, Evans says that’s been his favorite part of watching the trend grow.
“So many people have joined in, and also the happiness and joy it has brung so many other people, it is absolutely incredible,” he says.
This type of exchange is literally the basis of folk traditions, and one of the reasons sea shanties and the music of everyday people is kept alive through history and across cultures.
Was this just the right moment in time, when, isolated and restless, craving release from political upheaval and existential worry, people chose to reach across oceans and engage in a little sea shanty obsession?
Possibly. Or maybe it shouldn’t make sense, and we should simply roll with it.
Jobber Wiki author Frank Long contributed to this report.