Hello! Ask me (almost) anything about traditional music.
Annotation:High Part of the Road
X:1 T:High Part of the Road M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Jig K:G ~B3 ~c3 | ded cAG | ^E-FD D=ED | DGG FGA | BAB cBc | ded d (3Bcd |fed cAF|1 AGF G2 A:|2 AGF G (3Bcd || |:~g3 def | g2 a bag | ~f3 d (3efg | afd cAF | ~g3 def | g2 a bag | fed cAF | AGF G3 :||
HIGH PART OF THE ROAD (Ard an Bhóthair). AKA and see "Hill on the Road," "Top of the Road," "Willie Clancy's Jig." Irish, Double Jig (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Mitchell): AABB (Phillips, Taylor): AA'BB (Breathnach, Mulvihill): AA'BB' (Cranitch, Songer). A two-part version of "Blooming Meadows (1)" to which Breandán Breathnach applied the name "Ard an Bhóthair" in Ceol Rince na Éireann, vol. 1, where the endnote on the tune reads: "Mé fein a thug an t-ainm seo air," i.e., "named by myself".
A possible source of Breathnach's name is found in Ryan's Mammoth Collection, where a two-part version of "The Blooming Meadows" appears directly before ""Top of Cork Road - Jig" (aka "Father O'Flynn"). Breathnach (or the piper Willie Clancy, his source) may have accidentally transferred the "Top of the Road" name from the latter tune to the former. "Top of the Road" was then translated into Irish for publication in Ceol Rince na hÉireann, vol. 1, where it appears as "Ard an Bhóthair." A clumsy retranslation back to English yielded "The High Part of the Road," the title tune on Tommy Peoples' first Shanachie LP, and the name by which this version of "Blooming Meadows" is now popularly known.
