The Lobster

This ribald folk song about comical adventures that pursue from buying a crustacean originally called ‘The Sea Crabb’ first appeared in a manuscript of songs and ballads dated 1620. The manuscript found by Thomas Percy at his friends house in Shropshire, became known as the ‘Percy Folio’.

Not many versions of the song have been noted down since, and the versions that were have usually been censored by the publisher. There are many variants of the song and it is ofttimes called, ‘The Crabfish’, ‘The Crayfish’ etc. depending on what is the local crustacean.

A version of the song entitled ‘Johnny Daddle Dum’ has been collected from Irish Traveller folk, but the more unexpurgated versions of the song could still be heard at Rugby Clubs after game communal bath sing -alongs in the 1960’s and 70’s.

I first heard a ribald version of the song ‘The Crabfish’ sung by a pot holer called Roy Holmes in the late 1960’s. I cleaned it up a bit and changed the crab to a lobster to perform it in the local hostelries on my visits to Whitby. It always went down well in the Black Horse with a tap room full of long lining and lobster potting coble fishermen after they’d had a few pints.