Sea Shanty:What shall we do with a Drunken Sailor

The song has been widely recorded under a number of titles by a range of performers including Black Lagoon, The King's Singers, Pete Seeger, The Blaggards, U.K. Subs, The Bolokos, Malinda Kathleen Reese, Nathan Evans and The Irish Rovers.

For over 50 years, the Irish Rovers have played the song as their usual show closer. Several of their recordings of the song, sometimes under the name "Weigh, Hey and up She Rises", have gone viral on YouTube. As a response, the band released the 2012 album Drunken Sailor, which includes the title track and a prequel that tells the earlier life of the drunken sailor called "Whores and Hounds".

Don Janse produced an arrangement in the early 1960s which has been included in several choral music anthologies. The arrangement was first recorded by The Idlers, and has been performed by several collegiate groups over the years, including the Yale Alley Cats.

Pere Ubu's 1978 song "Caligari's Mirror" is a post-punk reworking of "Drunken Sailor".

Irish pop group Gina, Dale Haze and the Champions released a disco version of the song in 1981, which became a top 20 hit in the Irish charts.

The melody was also utilized by NFL Films composer Sam Spence for his track "Up as She Rises".

In Ringo Starr's rendition of "You're Sixteen", Starr is heard singing the chorus of the song in the fade at the end.

The 2019 film Fisherman's Friends, based on a true story, features a Cornish group of fishermen who sing the song en route to hitting the pop charts and touring. The song also features in the end credit