Good Ship Venus

The Good Ship Venus , also known as Friggin' in the Riggin', is a bawdy drinking song devised to shock with ever increasingly lewd and debauched sexual descriptions of the titular ship's loose moralled crew. The tune usually used (especially for the chorus) is "In and Out the Windows". The lyrics, as with all folksongs, show variations -- sometimes vast changes from performance to performance and from singer to singer. The usual open verse is the following:

'Twas on the good ship Venus,

By Christ you should have seen us,

The figurehead

Was a whore in bed,

And the mast a rampant penis.

The usual rhyming structure for this song is the limerick AABBA structure. The sexual lexis used throughout the poem is limited in its depravity only by the respective singer's gratuitous imagination.

Recorded Versions

• This song, under the title "Friggin' in the Riggin'", was most famously recorded by The Sex Pistols for The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. It was the B-side of the single "Something Else", released in the UK on 9 February 1979.

• A version of the song, titled "Good Ship Venus", appears on the August 2006 compilation album Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys performed by Loudon Wainwright III. His version is typically explicit and uses many of the verses common to many versions of the tune.

Sample Lyrics

T'was on the good ship Venus,
By God you should have seen us,
The figurehead was a whore in bed,
Sucking a red hot penis

chorus
Frigging in the rigging
Wanking on the planking
Masturbating on the grating
There's fuck all else to do.

The captain of this lugger,
He was a dirty bugger,
He wasn't fit to shovel shit
From one place to another

chorus

The first mate's name was Morgan
He was a grisley gorgan
Twice a day he'd strum away
Upon his sexual organ

chorus

The Captain's wife was Mable
Whenever she was able
She'd give the crew their daily screw
Upon the mess hall table

chorus

The cook, his name was Freeman
He was a dirty demon
He'd feed the crew on menstrual stew
And hymens fried in semen

chorus

The captain's randy daughter
Went swimming in the water
Delighted squeals came as the eels
Entered her sexual quarter

chorus

The bosun's name was Chopper
By Christ he had a whopper
Twice round the deck once round his neck
and up his arse for a stopper

chorus

Trivia

In an obvious reference to the song the ship in the comedy film Carry On Jack was His Majesty's Frigate Venus.

References

• Cray, Ed. The Erotic Muse: American Bawdy Songs (University of Illinois, 1992).
• Legman, Gershon. The Horn Book. (New York: University Press, 1964).