# Michael Row the Boat Ashore **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [November 10, 2002, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-row-the-boat-ashore/136083 "2002-11-10T00:42:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![lilrickey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4491bb/32.png) [@lilrickey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lilrickey)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2002, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-row-the-boat-ashore/136083/1 "2002-11-10T00:42:14Z")
The item on the origins of this song is certainly plausible, but where did you get the idea that it owes its popularity to Harry Belafonte? That honor goes to the folk group The Highwaymen, whose single of the song went to #1 on Billboard in the summer of 1961. Belafonte’s version wasn’t released until 1962. [http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mmichaelrow.html](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mmichaelrow.html) ---
**Author:** ![japastor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@japastor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/japastor)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2002, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-row-the-boat-ashore/136083/2 "2002-11-10T03:48:04Z")
Dex- In this reply, you said " ‘As mangled lyrics go, this isn’t up there with "excuse me while I kiss this guy…’ " 'scuse me, but normally “mangled lyrics” implies that the listener is the one who’s done the mangling. In this case, Hendrix was known to mangle those particular lyrics himself… apparently intentionally. I have at least one recording where he says " 'scuse me while I kiss THAT guy" (Stages '69 San Diego, track 8, at around 1:22). Don’t mean to quibble, but we pride ourselves on precision _here_ too. 🙂 -Jon ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2002, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-row-the-boat-ashore/136083/3 "2002-11-10T05:00:03Z")
**japastor** I think I read an online link one time that would indicate that Hendrix _knew_ what a hoot his misunderstood lyric had become. By the time he did your concert, he would quite often _deliberately_ sing the misunderstood lyric rather than the correct version. I’ll find it if you really want me to. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2002, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-row-the-boat-ashore/136083/4 "2002-11-10T05:04:39Z")
…and I see that I misread your post. You already knew what I said. Forgive me. But, now that I’m back here, I support **Dex’s** statement. **Hendrix’s original lyric was “mangled” by the listeners**. Much later, Hendrix used it to his mirth. ---
**Author:** ![japastor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@japastor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/japastor)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2002, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-row-the-boat-ashore/136083/5 "2002-11-10T15:45:10Z")
samclem- You can assume from the fact that I was able to cite the precise location of " 'scuse me while I kiss that guy" down to the second that I am a major Hendrix fan, but one has to wonder. Jimi was not above mangling lyrics, even on studio albums. There are a couple of mangled lines in “All Along the Watchtower,” and he scrambled a couple of words in “Voodoo Child” – although admittedly that was “live” in the studio. His enunciation wasn’t always perfect either, and in the context of what everyone assumes “Purple Haze” is about (although it might not be, if I remember correctly), “kiss this guy” isn’t a totally implausible reading. Many moons ago, I tried to figure out (for an English class) whether Shakespeare has Hamlet say “Oh, that this too too _solid_ flesh” or “Oh, that this too too _sullied_ flesh” – different early versions (folios and quartos) render it differently (and other renderings include “sallied” and " 'sailled", as a variant of “assailed”). After a lot of very tedious research, I concluded that the answer was “all of the above”: since we don’t have a manuscript for “Hamlet,” just transcriptions, it depended a lot on what the transcriber _thought_ Hamlet said. I also concluded that – given Shakespeare’s fondness for puns and other wordplay – this was either intentional or gladly adopted as a multiple meaning once it was mangled. Now, Hendrix ain’t no Shakespeare, but the question is whether a mangled version of a text that is embraced by the author of that text is truly mangled. 😉 Since this is now totally in the realm of philosophy, I don’t claim that what I’ve just said is correct – but it’s fun to speculate. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2002, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-row-the-boat-ashore/136083/6 "2002-11-11T22:18:13Z")
Credit where credit is due: the paragraph about Hendrix and priding ourselves on precision was added by li’l Ed, our esteemed and revered Editor. I had to ask him what the heck it meant. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2002, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-row-the-boat-ashore/136083/7 "2002-11-12T03:34:36Z")
So what is the **SD** striving for? Accuracy or precision?🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2002, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-row-the-boat-ashore/136083/8 "2002-11-12T06:32:23Z")
…seven decimal places of wrong… ---
**Author:** ![Seaver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecb155/32.png) [@Seaver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seaver)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2002, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-row-the-boat-ashore/136083/9 "2002-11-12T18:03:28Z")
I always thought it was “My goat knows the bowling score…” For you “Wings” fans out there. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2002, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-row-the-boat-ashore/136083/10 "2002-11-12T19:35:19Z")
> [@](#): > > Many moons ago, I tried to figure out (for an English class) whether Shakespeare has Hamlet say “Oh, that this too too solid flesh” or “Oh, that this too too sullied flesh” – different early versions (folios and quartos) render it differently There’s a similar debateable word in _The Tempest_. When Ferdinand is asking Prospero for Miranda’s hand in marriage, he says > [@](#): > > Let me live here ever; > So rare a wonder’d father and a wife > Makes this place Paradise. Maybe. Due to the long s-f similarity, there’s some ambiguity whether that last word of the second line is “wife” (i.e., Miranda and her father are both wonder’d), or “wise” (i.e., Miranda’s father is both wonder’d and wise). The [site I got that from](http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~benjamin/316kfall/316ktexts/tempest.html) has “wife”, which seems to me to make more sense, too (it’s not Prospero that Ferdinand is hot for), but I’ve seen it the other way, too. ---
**Author:** ![peepthis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9d8465/32.png) [@peepthis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peepthis)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2002, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-row-the-boat-ashore/136083/11 "2002-11-13T01:25:00Z")
**Dex** avoids answering a key question: Why ask Michael, and not somebody else, to help with the rowing? Well, because the archangel Michael is recognized by many as the [patron saint of boatmen & watermen](http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintm06.htm), invoked against storms at sea. As that links confirms, > [@](#): > > Whenever some act of wondrous power must be performed, Michael is sent, so that his action and his name may make it clear that no one can do what God does by his superior power. The Staff Report makes it sound like you call on him when the “rowing was tough” (as when the rowers grow tired), when in fact it was more to help bring the boatmen into dock when storms were a-brewin’. There are several other patrons of seafarers, but big Mike is an important one. ---
**Author:** ![peepthis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9d8465/32.png) [@peepthis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peepthis)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2002, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-row-the-boat-ashore/136083/12 "2002-11-13T01:34:12Z")
Or, in the figurative sense for slaves, they are asking Michael to guide/deliver them to the Promised Land (hence the allusion to the River Jordan) into freedom – either in this world or the next. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2002, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-row-the-boat-ashore/136083/13 "2002-11-13T17:53:17Z")
Thank you, Seaver . . . That was one of the funniest lines in that show ever (from the great Tony Shaloub, of course) . . . ---
**Author:** ![Sn0rri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Sn0rri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sn0rri)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-row-the-boat-ashore/136083/14 "2002-11-15T02:18:21Z")
Peepthis might need a little tutorial in American idiom, specifically the meanings of “tough,” to avoid hair-splitting like “The Staff Report makes it sound like you call on him when the “rowing was tough” (as when the rowers grow tired), when in fact it was more to help bring the boatmen into dock when storms were a-brewin’”). I think the SDSAB nailed it, considering observations like this one from Lib. of Congress folklorist Duncan Emrich, in a textbook segment on Santa Claus: "He [Nicholas] preserved mariners caught in terrible Mediterranean storms, and today [1972] Greek sailors wish well to others when the sailing caique moves out: “‘May St. Nicholas hold the tiller!’” For what it’s worth, [www.catholic-forum.com/saints/](http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/) lists both Mike & Nick as patron saints of “boatmen,… mariners,… sailors…, [&] watermen.” For whatever _else_ it’s worth, Nicholas is to be invoked “against robberies” & is also the patron saint of thieves. ---
**Author:** ![peepthis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9d8465/32.png) [@peepthis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peepthis)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-row-the-boat-ashore/136083/15 "2002-11-15T04:53:57Z")
**Snorri** , I’m not sure what your point is. I acknowledged that **Dex’s** report was sound, and that I agree with his assessment re: who Michael was. And I also explained already that Michael was only one of many (beyond Mike & Nick) patrons of mariners. What does your St. Nicholas non sequitur have to do with anything? Also, I’m American, so there’s no confusion over what “tough” means. My point was that **Dex** could have elaborated with one sentence more on Michael’s relation to boatmen, and specifically that he’s invoked during storms (as opposed to other ways the going might get “tough”). He’s now mentioned in the other thread on this that he specifically didn’t want to, which explains that omission. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2002, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-row-the-boat-ashore/136083/16 "2002-11-15T20:48:20Z")
Besides, Nick isn’t the patron of thieves. That would be Dismas, who was crucified beside Jesus and said “We are paying the just punishment for our crimes, but this man has done nothing wrong” (the name is traditional, but the story is in Mathew).