The Keel Row is a Northumberland folksong. It imagines a visitor to Sandgate in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, down on the docks beside the city’s river, hearing a woman singing about the keelmen, and one keelman in particular. Keelmen were sailors who managed the keel boats that took coal from the staithes on the River Tyne to the big collier ships further downstream, for shipping to London — a dangerous and laborious job.

The song goes back at least to the eighteenth century. The original lyrics run:

As I came thro’ Sandgate,
Thro’ Sandgate, thro’ Sandgate,
As I came thro’ Sandgate,
I heard a lassie sing:
“O, weel may the keel row,
The keel row, the keel row,
O weel may the keel row
That my laddie’s in.

“He wears a blue bonnet,
Blue bonnet, blue bonnet,
He wears a blue bonnet
A dimple in his chin.
And weel may the keel row,
The keel row, the keel row,
And weel may the keel row
That my laddie's in.”