Annotation:Molly's Hoop

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MOLLY'S HOOP. AKA - "Oh Mother a Hoop!" English, Air (6/8 time). E Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The tune as a country dance appears in Daniel Wright's Wright's Compleat Collection of celebrated country Dances (printed in London by John Joshnson), and John Walsh's Third Book of the Compleat Country Dancing-Master (editions of 1735 and 1749). The song "Molly's Hoop" or "O Mother, a hoop" was printed on broadside sheets and was included in several period ballad operas, including Cibber's Love in a Riddle (1729) and The Livery Rake (1733) {in both works the melody is used for the song "What Woman could do, I have tried, to be free"}, and Damon and Phillida (1734) {as "O Mother, a hoop!"}. The song goes:

What a fine thing have I seen today,
O Mother, a hoop!
I must have one, you cannot say nay,
O Mother, a hoop!
For husbands are gotten this way to be sure,
Men's eyes and men's hearts they so neatly allure;
O Mother, a hoop, a hoop!
O Mother, a hoop!

What a fine thing have I seen today,
O Mother, a hoop!
I must have one, you cannot say nay,
O Mother, a hoop!
A plain ring of gold turns a maid to a wife,
I must and I will have one, mother, 'odds life!
O mother, a plain wedding hoop!
O mother, a hoop!

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Times), vol. 2, 1859; p. 178.

Recorded sources:

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