Music / News
Longest Johns land in top-40 with viral hit Wellerman
A version of a mid-19th century New Zealand whaling song by a folk band from Bristol has sailed in at number 37 in the UK top-40 singles chart.
Wellerman by The Longest Johns has gone viral at the start of 2021 in no small part thanks to the trend for sea shanties on TikTok.
But as reported by Bristol24/7, The Longest Johns have been steadily growing their fanbase for almost a decade – with lockdown enabling them to reach an ever bigger audience online.
is needed now More than ever
The Longest Johns’ version of Wellerman first appeared on their 2018 album Between Wind and Water.
Talking to fans on Wednesday during a livestreamed set on YouTube – where they played Wellerman twice – the band let slip that is not even officially a sea shanty.
Its huge viral success, being streamed more than a million times a day over the last week, has even led the band to sign their first record deal.
Wellerman has now been played more than 12.8m times on Spotify: more than 4.5m times more than just seven days’ ago.
The song’s full title is also Soon May the Wellerman Come, but The Longest Johns’ version is simply called Wellerman as that was the band’s way of writing the song in their setlist and it was the song title that they sent to the designer of their album.
Main photo: The Longest Johns
Read more: The Bristol band at the centre of the global sea shanty revival
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