Maggie May

Maggie May is one of the traditional sea shanties featured on the official Windrose Original Soundtrack, and one of the songs your crew can sing at the helm. It is a forebitter shanty from Liverpool, England, and the soundtrack carries it in two cuts: a shorter trailer version and a longer full performance.

Track Facts

On the Soundtrack

The track appears on the Windrose: Original Soundtrack (Steam App 4564200), a collection that pairs the game's ambient score with its shanty rotation. The soundtrack released alongside the April 14, 2026 Early Access launch, sold as a standalone add on and bundled into the Supporter Bundle. Vocals across the shanty tracks are credited to Sean Dagher, with the instrumental arrangements composed and produced in house by the Kraken Express audio team. Maggie May is one of several songs that appears twice in the listing, once as the trimmed trailer cut and once as the full performance.

Origin

"Maggie May" is a traditional forebitter shanty from Liverpool, England, dating to the 19th century. A forebitter is a song sung off duty for entertainment rather than to time work, which sets it apart from the haul and capstan songs elsewhere in the rotation. The lyric tells the story of a Liverpool woman named Maggie May who is transported overseas as punishment for robbing a sailor; some variant versions name a different penal destination. It is a bawdy cautionary tale typical of the forebitter tradition, and the version in game is the team's own recording of that public domain material.

In Game

Like every track in the rotation, this shanty is tied to the helm rather than to a menu. Take the wheel of a ship and press B while under sail to start it. The NPC crew on deck join in on the chorus while you steer between islands. Playback is diegetic: the song comes from the crew on your own deck, so it rises and fades with the action and stops if you leave the helm.

Shanties yield priority to combat. The instant a fight begins the crew breaks off so the naval cannons and boarding actions read clearly, and the singing resumes once the engagement ends. Outside of combat the track can be re triggered freely on any voyage, which makes it a low cost way to set the mood on a long crossing.

Notes

• Included on the soundtrack alongside the more widely known rotation tracks such as Drunken Sailor and Leave Her Johnny.

• Its form as a forebitter, a song sung at leisure rather than during work, differentiates it from the halyard and capstan shanties on the same soundtrack.

• Because the soundtrack lists both a trailer cut and a full version, the in game performance and any trailer edit can differ slightly in length.

See Also

• Sea Shanties: the full shanty rotation and how the helm music system works

• Sean Dagher: the vocalist who performs the shanties

• Naval Combat: why the singing pauses mid fight

• NPC Crew: the deckhands who sing along at the helm

• Wind and Sailing: steering between islands while a shanty plays