"The song of the Liverpool seaman who sailed to San Francisco with the intention of staying there, but who got himself shanghaied back to Merseyside again, was a favourite rousing forebitter, sometimes used at capstan work when the spokes were spinning easy. The sense of the refrain may not be clear to landsmen. When the ship was sailing along at a fast speed, the sailors would say: “The girls have got hold of the tow-rope today.”