Annotation:I Often for My Jenny Strove
X:1 T:I Often for My Jenny Strove L:1/8 M:6/8 S:Chappell – Popular Music of the Olden Times (1859) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:Eb e|BGA F2E|FGA B,3|CE2 GB2|cde d2e| BGA F2E|FGA B,3|CDE GAB|F2E E3|| efg cde|fde c2B|G=AB cde|c2B B3| BA/G/F/E/ GB2|DB,2 DF2|GAB cde|F2E E3||
I OFTEN FOR MY JENNY STROVE. AKA and see "Cupid's Revenge," "No Charms above her." English, Song Air (6/8 time). E Flat Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. According to Chappell (1859), the tune appears in The Banquet of Music (1689, “Songs sung at the Court and Theatres”), Apollo's Banquet (1690), The Dancing Master (1695 and later editions), Pills to Purge Melancholy (all editions), and The Jovial Crew and other ballad operas. The tune was the vehicle for numerous broadside ballads.
I often for my Jenny strove,
Ey’d her, tried her, yet can’t prove
So lukcy to find her pity move,
Ize have no reward for love.
If thou wouldst but think on me,
And now forsake thy cruelty,
I for ever could be, should be, would be,
Join’d to none, but only thee.
Edinburgh fiddler and writing master David Young included a version of the tune in his MacFarlane Manuscript (c. 1741) as "No Charms above her."
