Annotation:Strike Up Ye Lusty Gallants
X:1 T:Strike Up, Ye Lusty Gallants M:6/8 L:1/8 Q:"Spirited" B:P.W. Joyce - "Old Irish Folk Music and Songs" (1909, No. 136,p. 70) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G D|G2A B2c|d3 B2G|B2G A2F|G3-G2D|G2A B2B| B2g g2e|e2d dcB|A3-A2B|G2A B2B|B2g g2e|e2d dcB| c3 def|g2f edc|B2A G2A|B2G A2F|G3-G2||
STRIKE UP, YE LUSTY GALLANTS. Irish, Air (6/8 time, "spirited"). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. "The ballad with this title appears to be of English origin, and as such it is mentioned in Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time (1857). It celebrates a sea fight between an English warship the 'Rainbow' and a pirate vessel commanded by 'Bold Captain Ward' in which the captain was defeated and taken prisoner. I heard the ballad sung in my native place in my youth to the air given below, with which also I give three verses from memory. The uniform tradition among the people whom I heard sing the song was that Captain Ward was an Irishman, one of the family of Ward or Mac an Bhaird of Donegal. But whatever may be thought of his nationality or about that of the ballad, the air I give here is Irish, and is quite different from the one given by Chappell" [Joyce].
Strike up, ye lusty gallants, with music sound your drum;
We have decreed a robber that on the seas has come:
His name it is bold Captain Ward--right well it doth appear,
There was never such a robber found out this many a year.
The he sent in unto our king the fifth of Januarie,
To ask if he would let him in and all his companie;
And if your king doth let me in till I my tale have told,
I'll bestow him for my ransom full thirty tons of gold.
"O nay, O nay," then said our king, "how could such a thing e'er be?
To yield to such a robber myself could ne'er agree;
He that deceived the Frenchman, likewise the king of Spain;
An how could he be true to me that was so false to them.
See also mid-19th century English antiquarian William Chappell's version of the song, as "Lusty Gallant," a very different take on the theme[1].
