Annotation:Room for a Rover
X:1 % T:Room for a Rover T:Blackbird, The C:James Peasable M:3/2 L:1/8 B:D'Rufey - Pills to Purge Melancholy, vol. 2 (1719) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G G2d4cB A2G2 | G2d2e2 f2g4 | A2a4 gf e2d2 | A2d4^c2d4 :|B2e4^d2e2B2 | B2e4^d2e4 | A2d4^c2d2A2 | G2 d4 ^c2 d4|G2c4 B2c2 BA| GA Bc defd f2G2|g2 fe defd g2G2|g2 fed c2 BA G4||
ROOM FOR A ROVER. AKA - "The Blackbird." English, ‘Old’ or Triple Hornpipe (3/2 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. The song "Room for a Rover" was printed in Thomas D’Urfy’s Wit and Mirth; or, Pills to Purge Melancholy, vol. 2, around the year 1705, edited originally by Henry Playford, 1698-1706. The words were by D'Urfey, but the tune was set to "a Tune of Mr. Peasable's call'd ye new Dance." Jacques Paisible (ca. 1656–1721), also known as James Peasable or James Paisible, was a French baroque composer and recorder virtuoso who lived and worked in London for about forty years. Thomas D'Urfey brought together this collection of songs, ballads and poems in a final six-volume edition in 1719-1720, wherein the title to the song is given as "The Blackbird: A New Song", the first two stanzas of which go:
Room, room, room for a Rover,
Yonder Town's so hot;
I a Country Lover
Bless my Freedom got:
This Celestial Weather
Such enjoymnent gives,
We like Birds flock hither,
Browzing on green leaves:
Some who late sate Scowling,
Publick Cheats to mend;
Study now with Bowling,
Each to Cheat his Friend:
Cho:
Wilst on the Hawthorn Tree, Terry rerry, rerry, rerry, rerry,
rerry, rerry, sings the Blackbird, Oh what a World have we.
In the Easter Regions,
Cannibals abound;
Eas'd of all Religions,
Man does Man confound:
But our worser Natives,
Here Church-Rules obey;
Yet like Barb'rous Castiffs,
Gorge up more than they:
In the Town, hot Follies,
Fools to Faction draw;
Nonsence, Noise and Malice,
Passes too for Law:
"Room, room for a rover" was also the indicated tune for songs in the ballad operas Sivia, or The Country Buriel (1731) and The Jovial Crew (1731).