From 1833 onwards, the Wellermen, ships owned by Weller Brothers of Sydney, supplied provisions to New Zealand shore whaling stations. They did this from their base in Otago, New Zealand, where they had established a whaling station in 1831.

Throughout their existence, the Wellermen (also known as the Weller brothers), became New Zealand’s paramount merchant traders. The lyrics evoke imagery of one of the Wellermen’s major functions; supplying “sugar, tea and rum” to shore whalers.

The ‘Wellerman’ sea song is frequently misidentified as a sea shanty, but with shanties being songs sung during repetitive work, ‘Wellerman’ is instead a whaling song or sea ballad, intended to tell a story or raise crew morale.

In January 2021, this song went viral on TikTok. In February 2021, The Longest Johns broke the song down on Genius' “VERIFIED.”