Annotation:Caleb Quotem's Freak
X:1 T:Caleb Quotem's Freak M:9/8 L:1/8 R:Slip Jig O:”Irish” B:John Hall – “A Selection of Strathspeys Reels, Waltzes & Irish Jigs” (c. 1818, p. 12) B: https://digital.nls.uk/special-collections-of-printed-music/archive/104981834 N:”Printed and sold by John Hall, at his Music Room.” N:Hall was a music teacher in Ayr, Scotland. N:Hall (1788-1862) was a music teacher in Ayr, Scotland. His dancing master’s ‘kit’ N:(a small fiddle) used in his dancing lessons, is still preserved. Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:G D|G2G BAG FED|GFG ABG FGA|G2G BAG FED|EFG AFD G2:| |:E|D2d- dcB cec|ABc {d}cBA G2F|GFG ABc dBG|EFG FAF {F}G2:|]
CALEB QUOTEM'S FREAK. Scottish, Irish; Slip Jig (9/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. "Caleb Quotem's Freak" is a slip jig printed in Ayrshire fiddler-composer biography:John Hall's c. 1818 collection of original and collected tunes, including a number attributed to Irish piper Walker Jackson. The slip jig is not one of the tunes so attributed, but Hall did mark it as "Irish" in origin. Caleb Quotem was the proper name of a character in George Colman (Younger)'s play The Wags of Windsor (1800), but the name was in popular use (slang) for a parish clerk or a jack of all trades. Colman had Quotem sing (act ii, sc.2):
I'm parish clerk and sexton here,
My name is Caleb Quotem;
I'm painter, glazier, auctioneer,
In short, I am factotum.
I make a watch; I mend the pumps;
For plumber's work my knack is:
I physic sell; I cure the munips;
I tombstones cut; I cut the rumps
Of little schoolboy Jackies.
Geography is my delight;
Ballads — epitaphs I write;
Almanacks I can indite;
Graves I dig, compact and tight.
At night by the fire, like a good jolly cock,
When my day's work is done and all over,
I tipple, I smoke, and I wind up the clock,
With my sweet Mrs. Quotem in clover.
