Annotation:Spanish Gipsy (The)
X:1 T:Spanish Gypsie M:6/4 L:1/8 N:”Longways for eight.” B:John Walsh – Complete Country Dancing-Master, Volume the Fourth B: (London, 1740, No. 65) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:G d2|d3ef2d3ef2|(d6d4)A2|d3ef2 d3ef2|(d6d4)d2| e3fe2 e4d2|c6B6|A3BA2 A4G2|(F6F4)D2| F4G2A4F2|B4A2d4A2|F3GA2G2A2F2|E4D2D4||
SPANISH GIPSY. AKA - "Spanish Gypsy," "Spanish Jeepsie." AKA and see "Fairy Queen," "Come Follow (Follow Me)." English, Country Dance Air (6/4 time). D Major (Barnes, Raven): C Major (Chappell). Standard tuning (fiddle). One part (Chappell): AB (Barnes): AABBCCDD. The “Spanish Gypsie” appears in John Playford's English Dancing Master, 1st edition (1651, as “Spanish Jeepsie”) and in all subsequent editions of the long-running series through the end, with the 18th (1728), Playford’s Musick's Delight on the Cithren (1666), The Musical Miscellany (1729), Walsh's Dancing Master (as "Fairy Queen"), and several ballad operas, such as The Bay's Opera (1727), and The Fashionable Lady (1730) {where is appears as the tune for the song "Come, follow, follow me"}. Chappell (1859) states the title is from a ballad appearing in a play by Middleton and Rowley, called The Spanish Gipsie (1623) sung by the gipsies before giving an exhibition of the various arts. It became better known as "Fairy Queen" and "Come, follow, follow me" from other ballads written to the air. Gary Taylor and John Lavagnino, in their 2007 book Thomas Middleton and Early Modern Textual Culture (pp. 174-178) convincingly argue that Playford’s air did not originally accompanied the “Come follow your leader” song, and that it in fact did not accompany any song in the play. Rather it was a melody that accompanied a dance without singing that occurs in scene 5.3 when four heterosexual couples are on stage, the last dance of the work.
