Annotation:Dear Tobacco
X:1 T:Dear Tobacco L:1/8 M:C| S:Charlton Memorial Tune Book (1956) K:Ador eAAc BG B2|eAAf gfed|eAAc BG B2|G2 GB dedB:| |:efge fg a2|efge dedB|efge fg a2|G2 GB dedB:||
DEAR TOBACCO. English, Reel. England; Northumberland, Cumberland. A Dorian (Charlton): E Dorian (Offord). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. 'Dear Tobacco' in the sense of expensive or hard-to-obtain tobacco. The melody also appears in the music manuscript book of biography:John Buttery, a Lincolnshire fifer with the British army around the turn of the 19th century. Buttery makes references to Scotland and the sea (e.g. battles in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean) in his manuscript, which he decorated with drawings. Buttery remained with his regiment for twenty years, and later in life emigrated to Ontario, Canada. Other manuscript versions appear in the John Hall ms. (1833), and the Matthew Bethem ms. (1815, Towcett, Cumbria). John Offord (2018) speculates that dear, or expensive, tobacco may have been the result of the British trade embargo of the former colonies during and after the American Revolution.
