A sea shanty was essentially a work chant set to music. There was no obvious difference between pirates and sailors—they all had work to do, and it was hard physical labor.
In the age of sailing warships, ships were nowhere near as easy to operate as they were today. Simply constantly adjusting and furling the huge mainsails while underway was troublesome enough.
Small boats were manageable, but the bigger the ship, the heavier the sails. So when sailors sang while hauling them, they were really just psyching themselves up.
How could men raise their morale? By singing, "Working 996 every day while the boss lives in The Villa; working 007 every day while the executives buy planes"?
The moment working people heard a song like that, they would probably want to quit and lie flat.
So if you wanted everyone to put their backs into it, all you had to do was tempt them with money and women. What Carbon-based Lifeforms wanted had always been simple: survival and reproduction. That was why sea shanties in so many places around the world revolved around money and women.
Of course, the more tactful term for that was "hope."
"This voice sounds familiar." Zatanna tilted her head as she listened. The singer was clearly not Siren the Sea Monster, though, and lacked the ability to bewitch people. She quickly calmed down and said, "This is the Nightmare Dimension. Anything unreasonable can happen here, so even if we see someone we know, we can't trust them."
"Right, Little Zatanna is correct." Su Ming looked at her encouragingly and nodded slightly. "Still, it's rare to encounter a human here. His singing is clearly articulated, and his English has a standard Manchester accent. He can probably communicate with us. Let's go take a look."
In reality,