Nathan Evans, a 26-year-old postman and aspiring musician from outside Glasgow, is credited with having started the “ShantyTok” trend with his rousing rendition of Wellerman, posted in late December.
In the US and UK, Wellerman’s surprise popularity is being held up as evidence of the mental toll of months-long lockdown – but the shanty itself originates from the Antipodes, and tells of a pivotal point in Australia and New Zealand’s history.
A “Wellerman” was an employee of the Sydney-based Weller Brothers’ shipping company, which from 1833 was the major supplier of provisions – such as the “sugar and tea and rum” of the shanty’s refrain – to whaling stations on New Zealand shores.
From Wellerman to Drunken Sailor, sea shanties are attracting the attention of landlubber TikTokers. "It went wild. I don t really know what happened," says the guy at the center of it all.
Rediscovered song, which has a ‘cheerful energy’, was likely written by a teenage sailor or shore whaler in New Zealand in the 1830s
Sea shanty TikTok has gone viral because young people in Covid lockdown are in a similar situation to 19th century whalers, says John Archer Photograph: Bildagentur-online/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Elle Hunt Fri 15 Jan 2021 06.29 GMT
Even from “the back of nowhere, far from any city” – not to mention the sea – John Archer caught wind of the sea shanty revival before anyone else.
From his home in landlocked Ōhakune, Archer had noticed a sharp uptick in visitors to the New Zealand Folk Song website he set up in 1998. One 19th-century seafaring epic was of particular interest: Soon May The Wellerman Come.