Annotation:Lucky Minute (The)

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LUCKY MINUTE, THE. English, Air (Whole and 6/8 time). G Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. James Oswald (1710-1769) published the tune as an air, followed by a jig setting of the same tune. "The Lucky Minute" was an erotic poem by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647–1680), first published around 1670. It begins:

AS Chloris, full of harmless Thought,
Beneath a Willow lay,
Kind Love a youthful Shepherd brought,
To pass the Time away.

She blushed to be encountered so,
And chid the am’rous Swain;
But, as she strove to rise and go,
He pulled her down again.

The verse was very popular for over a hundred years, and frequently published in songsters and ballad sheets, set to various tunes (including Nicholas Staggins air "Amoret and Phillis"). It appears in Wits' Academy (1677, p. 115) and the 1685 edition of Earl Rochester's Poems on Several Occasions (p. 46). Music was printed with the verses in The Merry Musician, vol. 2 (p. 73), John Watts' Musical Miscellany, vol. 1 (p. 146) and others. The melody published by Watts goes:

X:1
T:Lucky Minute, The
M:3/4
L:1/8
B:John Watts - Musical Miscellany vol. 1 (1729, p. 146)
Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion
K:Cdor
G2|c4d2|(e2d2)c2|B2 _A4|(G2_A2)B2|
(c>d) e2 (cB)|_A2 F4|E4 F2|(G2A2)^B2|(c2d2)e2|
(dc) ^B2c2|G4 d2|(g>f e2) (dc)|(de) ^B4|c6||

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Oswald (Caledonian Pocket Companion Book 10), 1760; p. 12.

Recorded sources:

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