The Keel Row is a traditional Tyneside folk song evoking the life and work of the keelmen of Newcastle upon Tyne. It was first published in 1770, but may be considerably older. The opening lines of the song set it in Sandgate, that part of the quayside overlooking the River Tyne to the east of the city centre where the keelmen lived and which is still overlooked by the Keelmen's Hospital.
As I came thro' Sandgate,
Thro' Sandgate, thro' Sandgate,
As I came thro' Sandgate,
I heard a lassie sing:
'O wha's like my Johnnie,
Sae leish, sae blithe, sae bonnie?
He's foremost 'mang the mony
Keel lads o' coaly Tyne;
He'll set or row sae tightly
Or, in the dance sae sprightly,
He'll cut and shuffle slightly,
'Tis true, were he nae mine.'
'He wears a blue bonnet,
Blue bonnet, blue bonnet,
He wears a blue bonnet
A dimple in his chin.
The tune of "The Keel Row" is used as the trot march of the Royal Horse Artillery, one of the mounted regiments of the British Army. The writer Rudyard Kipling mentioned the tune in one of his accounts of army life in imperial India under the British Raj: "The man who has never heard the 'Keel Row' rising high and shrill above the sound of the regiment...has something yet to hear and understand".