Bonny Ship The Diamond

A traditional folk ballad penned to commemorate a 19th century whaling ship and popularised by Ewan MacColl and A.L. Lloyd in 1957. In the liner notes for Lloyd’s album Leviathan in 1967, the Diamond sailed out of Peterhead,  in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, beginning in 1825. The Diamond was one of many vessels in a fleet lost to the crush of ice floes in the Davis Straits in 1830. 

The Diamond is a ship, me lads, for the Davis Strait we’re bound

The quay it is all garnished with bonnie lasses ’round

Captain Thompson gives the orders to sail the ocean wide

Where the sun it never sets, me lads, nor darkness dims the sky

For it’s cheer up lasses and lads, let your hearts never fail

For the bonny ship, the Diamond, goes a-fishing for the whale (x2)

[upper]

Along the quay of Peterhead, the lasses stand around
With shawls all pulled around their necks and the salt tears running down

Well don’t you weep, my bonny lass, though you’ll be left behind
For the rose will bloom on Greenland’s ice before we change our mind

For it’s cheer up lasses and lads, let your hearts never fail

For the bonny ship, the Diamond, goes a-fishing for the whale (x2)

It will be bright both day and night when Greenland lads come hame

Our ship full up with oil, my lads, and money to our name
We’ll make the cradles for to rock and the blankets for to tear
MAZ

And every lass in Peterhead sing: “Hushabye, my dear”

For it’s cheer up lasses and lads, let your hearts never fail
For the bonny ship, the Diamond, goes a-fishing for the whale (x2)

[all]

Here’s a health to the Resolution (Hey), likewise the Eliza Swan
Three cheers to the Battler of Montrose and the Diamond, ship of fame

We wear the trousers of the white and the jackets of the blue
When we get back to Peterhead, we’ll have sweethearts anew

For it’s cheer up lasses and lads, let your hearts never fail
For the bonny ship, the Diamond, goes a-fishing for the whale (x2)