Annotation:Welcome to Your Feet Again

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X:1 T:Your welcome to your feet again [1] M:C| L:1/8 R:Reel B:Robert Bremner - Collection of Scots Reels, Country Dances (1757, p. 14) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:C CEGA cED2|CEGA cGAc|FdEc dEDE|CEGA cGAc:| |:gcga gede|gcga gage|fage dcde|cGAG cGAc:|]



WELCOME TO YOUR FEET/FOOT AGAIN. AKA - "Your Welcome to Your Foot," "Welcome to your foot again (1)." AKA and see: "Bonny Lass wi' the Tocher," "Lady's Fancy (8)," "Mr. Foote's Favourite," "Soldier Lad or Anybody (A)," "Stay a Wee Bit Bonny Lad," "Stay and take the breiks with thee," "Stay and take your breeches wi' ye (2)." Scottish (originally), Canadian; Reel or Strathspey. Canada, Cape Breton. C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Gow): AAB (Glen, Kerr, Mackintosh): ABB' (Cranford, Honeyman): AABB (Bremner, Young): AA'BB' (Athole). The tune appears in the Drummond Castle Manuscript Part 2 (1734, No. 44, in the possession of the Earl of Ancaster at Drummond Castle), inscribed "A Collection of the best Highland Reels written by David Young, W.M. & Accomptant." Nathaniel Gow attributed the strathspey to biography:John Riddle of Ayr, although it has not been found in Riddle's (or Riddell's) printed collections[1]. The reel has an alternate title of "Stay and take your breeches wi' ye (2)" which also happens to be the name of another, musically unrelated tune in the Drummond Castle Manuscript (for which see "Stay and take your breeches wi' ye (1)." David Young also included the same melody in his MacFarlane Manuscript Book II (c. 1741, p. 237), although with the title "A Soger Lad or Any bodie."

John Glen (1891) finds it in Robert Bremner's A Collection of Scots Reel (1757), where it is set as a reel, as it is in David Young's 1734 manuscript (which Glen was apparently not aware of). Young, in his subsequent manuscript collection (The MacFarlane Manuscript, c. 1740, Nos. 181 & 192) entered versions of the reel as "Shàill an theil do raotan agad" and "Soger Lad or Anybody (A)." The James Knox Manuscript has the tune as "Tay & take your Breeches with you" (No. 88, f. 26). Multi-instrumentalist John Rook, of Waverton, near Wigton, Cumbria, entered a version of the melody in his large 1840 music collection as "Lady's Fancy."


Additional notes
Source for notated version : - Winston Fitzgerald (1914-1987, Cape Breton) [Cranford].

Printed sources : - Bremner (A Collection of Scots Reels), 1757; p. 14 (appears as “Your welcome to your feet again”). Cranford (Winston Fitzgerald), 1997; No. 114, p. 47. Glen (The Glen Collection of Scottish Music, vol. 1), 1891; p. 9. Gow (Complete Repository, Part 1), 1799; p. 19. Honeyman (Strathspey, Reel and Hornpipe Tutor), 1898; p. 15. Kerr (Merry Melodies, vol. 1), c. 1880; Set 20, No. 5, p. 13. Robert Mackintosh (A Fourth Collection of New Strathspey Reels, also some Famous old Reels), 1804; p. 16. Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; p. 61. Sutherland (Edinburgh Repository of Music, vol. 1), 1818; p. 24.

Recorded sources : - Breton Books & Music BOC 1HO, Winston “Scotty” Fitzgerald - “Classic Cuts” (originally issued on Celtic Records CX 40). Rounder Records 7005, Carl MacKenzie - “Welcome to Your Feet Again” (1976). Rounder Records, Alex Francis MacKay - "A Lifelong Home" (1997). WMT002, Wendy MacIsaac – “That’s What You Get” (1998?).

See also listing at :
Alan Snyder's Cape Breton Fiddle Recordings Index [1]
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [2]



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  1. John Riddell/Riddle of Ayr (1718-1795) would have been aged 16 at the time Young compiled his Drummond Castle MS, making it unlikely he was the tune's composer.