Annotation:Martin Said to His Man

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MARTIN SAID TO HIS MAN. AKA - "Fooba-Wooba." English, Air (3/4 time). C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. Chappell (1859) reports the song appears with its music as one of the Freeman's songs to three voices in Thomas Ravenscroft's (c. 1582-c. 1635) Deuteromelia (1609) and the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. Regarding those songs, in the life of Sir Peter Carew by John Vowell, he says "For the King himself (Henry VIII) being much delighted to sing, and Sir Peter Carew having a pleasant voice, the King would often use him to sing with him certain songs they call 'Freeman's Song's.'" Registered as a ballad with the Stationers' Company in 1588, it seems a satire on the tellers of marvelous tales, much in the vein (says Kines) of such traditional songs of exaggeration such as "Tom-a-lyn," "Paddy Backwards," "The Darby Ram," "Amhran na mBreag," and "I was born 1000 years ago." A much later derivative of "Martin Said to his Man" was written by William Courtright, published in 1877 and called "Flewy, Flewy."

Martin said to his man, fie, man, fie;
Martin said to his man, who's the fool now?
Martin said to his man, fill thou the cup and I the can,
Who hast well drunken man, who's the fool now?

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Time), vol. 1, 1859; p. 140. Kines (Songs From Shakespeare's Plays and Popular Songs of Shakespeare's Time), 1964; p. 91.

Recorded sources:

See also listing at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]

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