Annotation:Cushion Dance (Old) (4) (The)
X:1 T:Joan Sanderson, or The Cushion Dance [4] M:3/4 L:1/8 K:Gdor G2d2c2|=B3cA2|G2G2D2|G6:| M:6/4 L:1/8 G4d2 d4c2|d3e_ d2 c4A2|B4B2 c3dB2|A4G2G4| |:A2|B3cB2 F4F2|G3A G2 D4D2|B4B2 c3dB2|A4G2G6:||
CUSHION DANCE (OLD) [4], THE. AKA and see "John Sanderson." English, Jig (slow 3/4 and fast 6/4 parts). A Minor (Raven): G Dorian (Chappell). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCC. The air appears in Playford's Dancing Master 7th edition of 1686 as "Joan Sanderson, or The Cushion Dance", and was retained in all subsequent editions of the long-running series, through the last (18th), printed in London in 1728 by John Young. It also appears in all three editions of the Walsh's Compleat Country Dancing Master (1718, 1731, 1754). Chappell (1859, p. 288) gives a complete description of the dance. He notes that there were many allusions to it in Elizabethan literature, and the tune is called for in other songs and parodies. It is not so much a dance as a flirtatious kissing game that involved calls and answers between dancers and musicians.
