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"Soon May the Wellerman Come", also known as "Wellerman" or "The Wellerman", is a folk song in ballad style [2] first published in New Zealand in the 1970s. The "wellermen" were supply ships owned by the Weller brothers , three merchant traders in the 1800s who were amongst the earliest European settlers of the Otago region of New Zealand.
On 27 December 2020, Scottish musician and TikTok user Nathan Evans uploaded a video of himself singing the sea shanty 'Soon May the Wellerman Come', which quickly went viral. Others sang their own version, or added their own contribution to the video from Evans.
"Wellerman", which was already well known on the app due to the popularity of his version of the song, quickly gained views on TikTok, inspiring many others to duet and to remix the song, including renditions by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, comedians Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert, [12] guitarist Brian May, and entrepreneur Elon Musk.
In the 1860-1870 period a folksong (writer unknown) titled Soon May the Wellerman Come was coined. The song’s lyrics highlight the way that many whaling stations relied upon the ‘wellermen’ as from 1833 ships used by the Wellers travelled the coast from their Ōtākou base to sell provisions to other whaling operations."
The trend sparked a huge interest in sea shanties (despite Wellerman not actually being a sea shanty) with millions of people discovering The Longest Johns' recording of Wellerman, originally released on their 2018 album Between Wind and Water. [24] The song has been streamed on Spotify over 58 million times (as of 11 March 2023). [25]
On 22 January 2021, Scottish musician Nathan Evans released his version of the sea shanty "Soon May the Wellerman Come" with his version being similar to that of British folk group The Longest Johns. [79] [80] At the same time a remix was commissioned by Evans' record company Polydor, with the remixers being 220 Kid and Billen Ted.
Selena Gomez dropped “Single Soon” on midnight Friday, and the infectious track offers up a very joyful, different take on a breakup song.
The chorus of the sailing song "The Wellerman" references Weller Bros., an Australian whaling supplier that paid in goods rather than money [6] to the workers at their whaling stations in New Zealand: Soon may the Wellerman come To bring us sugar and tea and rum.