The Postscript: Sea shanties

I am not exactly a connoisseur of contemporary culture.

I haven’t seen the latest series on Netflix or anything else. I don’t follow Twitter or Snapchat or Instagram. But somehow, a TikTok phenomenon came to my attention that I found too delightful to ignore.

Sea shanties are all the rage among Generation Z.

“Sea shanties?” I thought. “That can’t be right.”

But I checked it out and, yes, teens and young 20-somethings are singing sea shanties on TikTok, and listeners add their own harmonies and instrumentation. The arrangements get more and more interesting and complex a...