"I'm Shipping Up to Boston" is a song with lyrics written by the folk singer Woody Guthrie and music written and performed by the Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys. It appeared on their 2005 album, The Warrior's Code. An earlier recording of it can be found on the Hellcat Records compilation Give 'Em the Boot: Vol. 4.
The song's simple lyrics describe a sailor who had lost a leg climbing the topsail, and is shipping up to Boston to "find my wooden leg." The song has so far sold 1,044,000 digital copies without ever charting on the Hot 100.
The video features the Dropkick Murphys performing the song on the waterfront in East Boston. The band is also seen "hanging out" with hooligans while being chased by Boston police officers.
A small Facebook meme grew up after Wisconsin State Representative and Speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly Jeff Fitzgerald reportedly used the song during the 2012 Wisconsin Republican Convention in Green Bay. This usage prompted the band to release the following statement on Facebook:
We just got word that Wisconsin State Rep and Speaker of the State Assembly Jeff Fitzgerald used "Shipping Up To Boston" as his walk-on song yesterday at the Wisconsin GOP Convention in Green Bay.
The stupidity and irony of this is laughable. A Wisconsin Republican U.S. Senate candidate - and crony of anti-Union Governor Scott Walker - using a Dropkick Murphys song as an intro is like a white supremacist coming out to gangsta rap!
Fitzgerald: if you and your staff can't even figure out your music you might wanna give up on the politics!!!!!
We stand beside our Union and Labor brothers and sisters and their families in Wisconsin and all over the U.S!
The song was covered by Finnish melodic death metal band Children of Bodom, and appeared on their 2012 compilation album Holiday at Lake Bodom.
Read more about I'm Shipping Up To Boston: Charts, In Entertainment
Famous quotes containing the words shipping and/or boston:
“Talk of a divinity in man! Look at the teamster on the highway, wending to market by day or night; does any divinity stir within him? His highest duty to fodder and water his horses! What is his destiny to him compared with the shipping interests?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Now I am just an elderly lady who is full of spleen,
who humps around greater Boston in a God-awful hat,
who never lived and yet outlived her time,
hating men and dogs and Democrats.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)