Annotation:Rattle the Cash (1)
X: 1 T: RATTLE THE CASH [1] O: Irish Melody %R: jig B: Elias Howe "The Musician's Companion" Part 3 1844 p.70 #4 S: http://imslp.org/wiki/The_Musician's_Companion_(Howe,_Elias) Z: 2015 John Chambers <jc:trillian.mit.edu> M: 6/8 L: 1/8 K: G % - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - D |\ G2c BGB | c2c c2A | G2c BGB | A2A A2c | G2c BGB | c2c c2e | dBG cAF | G2G G2 :| |: d |\ g2g gec | c2c c2c | a2a afd | d2d d2d | g2g geB | c2c c2A | BGB cAF | G2G G2 :| % - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
RATTLE THE CASH [1]. American, Irish, English; Slide or Jig (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The tune was used for a single step dance in the North-West (England) morris dance tradition. Howe and Kerr both assign the melody an Irish provenance, although there is little of Irish character in the melody. It was included in Patrick O'Flannagan's Hibernia Collection (Boston, 1860), but this hardly an indication of provenance as 'Patrick O'Fannagan' is one of Elias Howe's pseudonyms. In fact, the first strain of "Rattle the Cash" is a 6/8 setting of the Scottish melody "Up and Waur Them A' Willie (1)."
‘Rattle the Cash’ was the name of at least one bay stud, bequeathed in the will of Frances Wren in 1808, late the resident of Wilkinson County, Mississippi Territory, so the phrase was in currency in the early 19th century.