A seven-year-old girl from Aberdeen left her parents in stitches after she secretly recorded a sea shanty about coronavirus.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon lifted the nation’s mood earlier today when she talked about the success of the Covid vaccines but if she’s in the market for a more entertaining method of delivering the good news, she could do worse than take a page out of Frankie-Rose Black’s book.
The P3 pupil at Airyhall Primary in Countesswells snuck upstairs with her iPad in tow at the weekend to record a version of The Wellerman – a song recently popularised by Nathan Evans.
In Frankie-Rose’s version, she sings about all the things she wants to get back to normal once everyone is vaccinated.
Her mum Sarah Black laughed: “She was banging on her dressing table in her room, I was the one telling her to be quiet.
“She’d seen the Wellerman song, listened to it in the charts and she and her sister know it word for word, they’re constantly singing along on the radio.
“She’s very theatrical as you can tell, always singing and performing. She’d been annoying everyone with the noise, then went up to her room, recorded this and sent it to me in a message.”
Frankie-Rose has been writing some lyrics at her dad Paul’s in the last few weeks, so it seems likely that a few new renditions are in the pipeline.
But while the seven-year-old might be the toast of her friends and family after her funny song, she may also have some questions to answer from mum and dad about boys after letting slip in the lyrics that “her lad is fine”.
Her little sister Rudi-May, 4, might also not be too chuffed at being described as “doing nothing but the loo”.
Sarah said: “Some of the lyrics were a bit questionable but she’s always doing little crackers.
“You just have check back the iPad to see what she’s been recording and you’ll see plenty snippets like this.”
The Wellerman
Soon May the Wellerman Come or simply Wellerman is a 19th century whaling song that exploded into the mainstream in late 2020.
Versions by British folk music group The Longest Johns and Nathan Evans became viral hits on TikTok, leading to a social media craze around sea shanties.
@nathanevanss The Wellerman. #seashanty #sea #shanty #viral #singing #acoustic #pirate #new #original #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #singer #scottishsinger #scottish
Evans, who worked as a postman in Airdrie, quit his day job earlier this year to pursue a career in music of the back of the song.
The 26-year-old has been singing sea shanties on TikTok since July 2020 but it was his rendition of The Wellerman that went worldwide.