Annotation:Row Well Ye Mariners
ROW WELL YE MARINERS. English, Country Dance Tune (6/4 {Barlow, Chappell} or 6/8 time {Barnes, Sharp}). G Major (Barlow, Barnes, Chappell): A Major (Sharp). Standard tuning (fiddle). ABCD (Sharp): ABCDE (Chappell): AABBCCDD (Barlow, Barnes). The air was published in John Playford's English Dancing Master [1] (London, 1651, and all subsequent editions), Thomas Robinson's Schoole of Musicke (1603), and D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy (1707). The original ballad, now lost, appears in the registers of the Stationers' Company as early as 1565-6. There are some similarities with the Welsh tune “Meillionen,” of more recent vintage. "Row Well Ye Mariners" was one of the country dance tunes recorded by the Victor band in 1915 at Camden, New Jersey, arranged by English folk song and dance collector Cecil Sharp, who was visiting America at the time. Sharp received "session supervisor" credits for the recording.
As with many well-known tunes of the time, the melody was repurposed for broadside ballads. One, "The Lamantacion from Rome" betrays bitter anti-Catholic feeling.
