Annotation:In the days we went Gipsying
X:1 T:In the days we went Gipsying C:Nathan James Sporle (1812-1853) M:2/4 L:1/8 S:Lawrence Leadley music manuscript collection (c. 1840's, Helperby, Yorkshire) N:Leadley's ms page is reproduced in Stephen Campbell's 2012 PhD thesis, p. 63 K:C G2|c>cc>c|d>cBA|GG F>G|E3D|CDEF|GABc| dc A>B|G3A|A>A AB|c<G GG|FGEF|D2G2| c>ccc|c>ccA|G<c e>d|c3G|G>F E>F|AGGG| .A.B.c.d|B2 G>G|cccc|cBc>d|e2 e>e|f>edd| eccA|G2 e>d|c2G2|G>G F>F|E2B2|c2 c>c|c2||
IN THE DAYS WE WENT GIPSYING. AKA - "In the days we went a-gypsying." English, Song Air (2/4 time). C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. Stephen Campbell (in his PhD thesis "Reconsidering and Contextualizing the Vernacular Tradition: Popular Music and British Manuscript Compilations 1650-2000", 2012) records that the c. 1830 song can be found in collector Alfred Williams' Folk Songs of the Upper Thames: With an Essay on Folk-song Activity in the Upper Thames Neighborhood (1923), who states it was sung by 'traveling navvies and drovers.' The melody to the song [Roud 1245] can also be found in the second volume of Helperby, Yorkshire, musician Lawrence Leadley, c. 1840's (No. 23). Campbell finds the song to be a composed drawing-room ballad by Nathan James Sporle (1812-1853), with words by H. Edward (or Edwin) Ransford (1805-1876), issued on single-sheets, including one published in New York in 1839 [1] [2] (arranged by Joseph Knight). Campbell cites this as an example of the permeability between genres, with song airs used for dancing and marching, and vice-versa, in the popular vernacular (he references also use of the melody by the North Staffordshire, Prince of Wales's Regiment as a regimental march).
Sporle and Ransford's song also appears in 19th century songsters, such as The New York Glee Book (1851, set for four voices), and J. Wiseheart's Wiseheart's Harmonist, and Sentimental Singer's Album (1830), among others. "A couplet from the song," writes Campbell, "is quoted by Charlotte Bronte in the first chapter of Jane Eyre. Collector Cecil Sharp noted a verse and tune from Mrs. Lock of Muchelney Ham, Somerset in 1904. The song begins:
In the days we went a-gypsying, a long time ago,
The lads and lasses in their best were dressed from top to toe.
We danced and sang the jocund song upon the forest green,
And nought but mirth and jollity around us could be seen.
CHORUS:
And thus we passed the merry time, nor thought of care or woe,
In the days we went a-gypsying, a long time ago.
"In the days we went Gipsying" is also the indicated tune for later 19th century songs.
