Annotation:My Friend and Pitcher
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MY FRIEND AND PITCHER. AKA and see "Wealthy Fool (The)." Irish, Air (4/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. The title is a phrase in John O’Keefe (lyrics) and William Shield's (music) opera, The Poor Soldier (1785), and was a well-known and commonly used term in the late 18th and 19th centuries as a term of fondness for a chum, crony, or familiar acquaintance, particularly one of the opposite sex. It was derived from a sentimental song in the opera that went:
My friend so rare, my girl so fair!
t With such, what mortal can be rthicher?
Give me but these, a fig for care!
With my sweet girl, my friend and pitcher.
The tune was also used for a song in the stage production Jack and Sue, or the Fortunate Sailor' (1790).
The tune was entered into The Buttery Manuscript (c. 1784-1820, No. 749), the copybook of John Buttery (1784-1854), who joined the 34th Regiment in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England, in 1797 and served as a fifer until discharged in 1814. His large ms. contains marches, duty calls, dance tunes and airs. It was also entered in the 1792 copybook of musician John Carter (MS A.22 at the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, Scotland).
See note for "Annotation:Wealthy Fool (The)" for more.
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: O'Farrell (National Irish Music for the Union Pipes), 1804; p. 26. Reinagle & Aitken (A Collection of Favorite Songs, Book 1), 1789; p. 13.
Recorded sources: