Annotation:Tipling John
X:1 T:Tipling John on the Riot Night M:C L:1/8 R:Country Dance B: Young – Second Volume of the Dancing Master, 1st edition (1718, V203) K:C G2|c2C2C2c2|B3A G2F2|E2c2D2B2|c6 G2| c2C2C2c2|B3c d3c|BA G2 D2^F2|G6:| |:d2|g2G2G3d|g2G2G3G|c2 (Bc)A2d2|B4| c2 Bc A4|d2 cd B4|cB A2 G3G|C6:|]
TIPLING JOHN ON THE RIOT NIGHT. AKA - "Tippling John." English, Country Dance Tune (6/8 time). C Major (Young): D Major (Thompson, Winter). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. "Tippling John", with directions for a country dance, was published by John Young in the Second Volume of the Dancing Master, 3rd edition (1718), and in John Walsh'sSecond Book of the Compleat Country Dancing-Master(1719). It was later published, slightly altered, in 1788 by London music publishers Samuel, Ann and Peter Thompson (Thompson's Compleat Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, vol 5). "Tipling John" was a vehicle for songs in ballad operas and can be heard in Walker's The Quaker's Opera (1728), Grub Street Opera (1731), Welsh Opera (1731) and Genuine Grub (1731).
Words to "Tippling John" were printed on broadsides. The first several stanzas go:
bn
As tippling John was joggin on,
Upon a riot night,
With tottering pace, and fiery face,
Suspicious of high flight;
The guards who took him by his look,
For some chief fiery-brand,
Ask'd whence he came? What was his name?
Who are you? Stand friend stand.
I'm going home, from meeting come,
Ay says one, that's the cafe;
Some meeting he has burnt, you see
The flame's still in his face.
John thought it time to purge his crime,
And said, My chief intent
Was to asswage my thirsty rage,
I'th meeting that I meant.
Come, friend, be plain, you trifle in vain,
Says one, pray let us know,
That we may find how you're inclin'd;
Are you High-Church or Low?
John said to that, I'll tell you what,
To end debates and strife,
All I can say, this is the way
I steer my course of life.
I ne'er to Bow, nor Burgess go,
To Steeple-house nor ball,
The brisk bar-bell best suits my zeal
With gentlemen, d'ye call? etc.
Moffat and Kidson's Minstrelsy of England (1901, p. 193) explains: :
Dr. Sachevcrell the High Church Tory divine preached a sermon before the Lord Mayor in St. Paul's Cathedral, on November 5, 1700, in which he denounced the Whig Ministers and the body of Dissenters. The sermon "gave great political offence, and on his trial and suspension in February, 1710, a party of rioters broke into and destroyed several dissenting meeting houses, one, Burgess', having its pulpit and pews burnt in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The song describes a belated toper reeling home upon the night of the riot, and being seized upon by the watch as implicated in the firing. The ditty has a fine characteristic English air attached, and this carried it down to a time long after the riot was forgotten. The first publication of the song and air I can trace is in John Walsh's Merry Musician; or, a Cure for the Spletn, vol. i., 1710, and this is by far the best version of the tunc. It is there headed, " Occasioned by the pulling down of Burgess' Meeting House." The melody alone as " Tippling John ; or, the Riot Night " is in vol. ii. of the Dancing Master, 1719. With the song it next appears in vol. i. of Watt's Mus'cal Miscellany, 1729, and the tune is used in The Lovers' Opera, 1729-30. In Watt's copy it is stated to have been " sung by Mr. Harper in The Provok'd Wife," This was probably on the revival of that comedy in 1725.
"Tippling John" was entered in the mid-19th century music manuscript of William Winter, a shoemaker and violin player who lived in West Bagborough in Somerset, southwest England.
