Queer Balladeer Shanty Sing

Queer Balladeer Shanty Sing at the Bantha Tea Bar.  Join us on Sunday, October 18, 2026 from 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm to sing sea shanties, sailing songs and pub songs.  All skill levels are welcome!

This is an LGBTQIA+-centered community sing in the Pittsburgh area. We welcome singers of all skill/knowledge/experience levels, and all genders and all sexual orientations. I am no shanty purist, and so we sing sailing songs and pub songs, new and old, along with our shanties. We also queer the lyrics to traditional songs as we see fit! For example, I did a rewrite of Haul Away Joe that celebrates gender nonconformity. Another time I did a rewrite of “Wellermen” as “Wellerthem” that filled in gendered pronouns with neopronouns because the idea was amusing to me, but it ended up being kind of a mouthful to sing and we’ve never done it again! And there’s a lot of songs that we sing just as they are, because we just like to sing them!

The most important thing is that you’re accepting of lyric changes that do away with racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise oppressive language, and that you’re accepting of the LGBTQ+ people you’re showing up to sing with. TLDR: Don’t be a bigot; don’t be a jerk.

Songbooks are provided in case you like to have the lyrics, and also because there are currently more songs I’d like to sing than what I have committed to memory.