Annotation:Happy Clown (The)

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 HAPPY CLOWN. AKA and see "One Evening Having Lost My Way," "Walpole," "I'm like a skiff on the ocean tossed." English, Air (6/8 time). E Flat Major (Chappell): G Major (Aird). Standard tuning (fiddle). One part (Chappell): AABB (Aird). The tune appears in the 1718 and 1728 editions of Playford's Dancing Master, Walsh's Compleat Country Dancing Master, and many ballad operas and broadside sheets. Stenhouse (in commentary on the Scots Musical Museum) claims to have had a manuscript version from 1709. "I'm like a skiff on ocean toss'd" are words to the tune in John Gay's Beggar's Opera (1729, air XLVII). Irish versions of the tune appear in Stanford-Petrie (Complete Collection, 1905, Nos. 1397 and 1398) under the title "Is Truagh Mar' Chonairc Mé Aén Bhean a-Ríamh" ('Tis pity I e'er saw a woman), in which two bars correspond to one bar in the older English sets.  Source for notated version:  Printed sources: Aird (Selections of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs), vol. II, 1785; No. 156, p. 57. Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Times), vol. 2, 1859; pp. 108-109. Johnson (Scots Musical Museum), 1787-1803; No. 251.  Recorded sources:

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