Annotation:Light o' Love
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LIGHT O' LOVE. AKA and see "Volte Angloise." English, Air (3/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part (Kines): AABB (Chappell). An English annexation of an Irish tune, asserts Flood (1906), though the English antiquarian Chappell (1859) does not identify it as such. Kines (1964) remarks that the words to the song "Light O' Love" (which have not been found) have been attributed to Leonard Gybson and were first printed in 1570, though he says the song may have been a reworking of another much older but well-known song. The air is mentioned twice in Shakespeare, in Two Gentlemen of Verona (act I, sc. 2), and in Much Ado About Nothing (act III, sc. 4: "Clap us into 'Light o' Love', that goes without a burdin {drone-bass}; do you sing it and I'll dance it"). It appears in William Ballet's Lute Book, the Leyden Lute Manuscript (under the title "Volte Angloise"), and, much altered, in Musick's Delight on the Cithren (1666).
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Times), vol. 1, 1859; p. 82. Kines (Songs From Shakespeare's Plays and Popular Songs of Shakespeare's Time), 1964; pp. 44-45.
Recorded sources:
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