Annotation:I'll Dance a Jig and I'll Dance No More

Back to I'll Dance a Jig and I'll Dance No More

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I'LL DANCE A JIG AND I'LL DANCE NO MORE. American, Jig. A Mixolydian. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. "This air takes its title from another form of the jingle quoted in connection with "O Dear Mother My Toes are Sore (1)." Mrs. Armstrong's form of the rhyme is:

I'll dance a jig and I'll dance no more,
Till Daddy comes home from Baltimore;
I'll dance no more, my feet are sore,
Dancin' all over the sandy floor.

Her tune is one known also in Greene County and in central Pennsylvania to versions of the rhyme (Bayard Coll., Nos. 86, 111, 340), and there are other south-western Pennsylvania airs with the same or similar names, bespeaking connection with this little formula (e.g., Bayard Coll., Nos. 5, 306). It is possible that this tune might be a remote connection of the widespread and multiform old air represented by Nos. 44-48 and 49 in this collection (See "Oro Welcome Home")" Bayard, 1944).

Source for notated version: Mrs. biography:Sarah Armstrong, (near) Derry, Pennsylvania, November 18, 1943 [Bayard].

Printed sources: Bayard (Hill Country Tunes), 1944; No. 7.

Recorded sources:

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