Annotation:Disappointed Widow (The)

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DISAPPOINTED WIDOW. AKA - "Slow Men of London." AKA and see "Humors of Dublin," "Widow Brown." English, Air and Country Dance (6/8 time). F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. The tune (and country dance) early appears under this title in John Young's vol. III of the Dancing Master (London, 1726, p. 68) and John Walsh's New Country Dancing Master, Book 3 (1728). Young was heir to the Playford publishing concerns in London. The melody also was heard in John Gay's (1685-1732) ballad opera Polly (1729), a disappointing sequel to his hugely successful Beggar's Opera (London, 1728), however, it is based on an earlier song called "Slow Men of London" or "Widow Brown", from Beaumont and Fletcher's play Wit Without Money (revived for the London stage in 1708). This song is set to the wrong tune ("Jamaica") in D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy, according to Bruce Olson.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Howe (1000 Jigs and Reels), c. 1867; p. 127. Wilson (Companion to the Ball Room), 1816; p. 92.

Recorded sources:



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