For context, I was involved in a giveaway through Fiction-Atlas earlier in the year that was themed around nautical-themed stories, hence “Tales of the Sea.” I promoted that by posting my own most nautical-themed posts and had a run of posts all prefaced with “Tales of the Sea.”
All of which is to say…
… here’s a song that’s either about a boat or a person. The lyrics are kinda vague on the point.
Dating back to around the 1850s and apparently attributable to British sailors who defected to Mexcio, Santiana (exact spelling and lyrics vary, as is often the case with folk music) is a sea shanty about Mexican general and eventual President Antonio López de Santa Anna — the correct spelling and pronunciation of his name was clearly lost as the shanty developed; variations include “Santianna”, Santiana”, “Santy Anna”, “Santayana”, “Santiano”, and “Santy Anno”.
Santa Anna is famous as the Mexican leader during the Battle of the Alamo and his subsequent defeats in the Battle of San Jacinto and the Mexican-American War — alluded to in the song, the General Taylor who “took his life” is the eventual President Zachary Taylor.
Fun fact: My fingers almost outpaced my brain just now and wrote that as “James Taylor”…
The Simpsons: 20th Television Animation and Gracie Films.
Broadly, the song is a biography of Santa Anna, though one that complete garbles the historical details. Perhaps unsurprising if the song originated with British sailors who wouldn’t necessarily have the greatest grasp of the Mexican-American war.
For example, Molly-Del-Rey is held to refer to either Monterrey or Molino del Rey and Santa Anna did not in fact, gain the day at either of those places (they were both American victories). Nor did he lose both his legs, though he did lose his left before the Mexican-American War (and his prosthetic leg was ultimately looted by a mob when he was overthrown as President of Mexico). Also, he wasn’t killed during the War (dying in exile in 1876), definitely not killed by Taylor and not subsequently buried off Cape Horn.
Now, in part because the song fudges the details, I have a hard time telling if the song is supposed to be a sincere paean in praise of Santa Anna or a scathing satire of Santa Anna.
Though, of course, he’s been dead for nearly 150 years, so I feel like most present-day singers or listeners are just going to enjoy the song as a catchy tune. It’s 2023, both 19th-century Mexican politics and most manual labour required aboard a sailing ship have largely been rendered obsolete…
As is often the case with sea shanties, Santiana has a clear call-and-response format:
Well, heave her up and away we’ll go
Away Santiana
Heave her up and away we’ll go
Along the plains of Mexico.
It’s a lot easier to explain in song, so here’s Santiana performed by British a capella group and TikTok sensations The Longest Johns:
The Music to Write Realmgard to playlist is here:
Check out my other Top Posts of 2024 here.
And follow me here:
If you’ve enjoyed my content, please consider supporting me through Ko-fi or Patreon, or through Paypal by scanning the QR code below:
Follow Realmgard and other publications of Emona Literary Services™ below:
Subscribe to the Emona Literary Services™ Substack newsletter here.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The author prohibits the use of content published on this website for the purposes of training Artificial Intelligence technologies, including but not limited to Large Language Models, without express written permission.
All stories published on this website are works of fiction. Characters are products of the author’s imagination and do not represent any individual, living or dead.
The realmgard.com Privacy Policy can be viewed here.
Realmgard is published by Emona Literary ServicesTM
