Annotation:Tow row row (2)
X:1 T:Tow Row Row [2] M:2/4 L:1/8 S:O’Neill – Dance Music of Ireland:1001 Gems (1907), No. 989 Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:G (3d/e/f/|gB BA/G/|FA AB/A/|Gg g/f/g/a/|bgg (3d/e/f/| gB BA/G/|FA AB/A/|Gg g/f/g/a/|bgg:| |:B/c/|dB de/f/|gfed|dB de/f/|gfed|e/e/e/e/ ed| gBBA|G/G/G/F/ GA|BGED|G/G/G/F/ GB|A/A/A/A/ AB| Ggfe|edBA|G/G/G/G/ GB|A/A/A/A/ AB|Ggfa|g3 g:|]
TOW ROW ROW [2], JOHNNY WILL YOU NOW? (Tou Rou Rou). AKA and see "It is Day," "Paddy Will You Now?." Irish, Country Dance Tune (2/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The 'B' part is twice as long as the eight-bar 'A' part. O'Neill remarked in his Waifs and Strays of Irish Melody (1922, p. 43):
To the editor this strain was known in boyhood days as "Tow row row", both names being taken from the first line of the song "Tow row row, Paddy will you now" which song was the by the way cannot be found in any Irish Collections at the present available. "Tá na lá" or "It is day", one of three tunes of that name in the Stanford/Petrie Collection, is obviously the same strain. The arrangement however is quite different; the melody and chorus together consisting of but 17 bars.
Paul de Grae finds the tune O'Neill references as Stanford/Petrie No. 1413, "and is essentially the double-length second part of O'Neill's tune, with an altered ending one bar longer"[1]. Paul also notes that O'Neill called Clinton's "Tow row row (1)" as "not differing materially from" the tune O'Neill printed. However, Paul points out that the versions are actually quite different; "it resembles a truncated version of O'Neill's second part"[2].
In Irish Folk Music: A Fascinating Hobby (1910), O'Neill noted that variants of the tune were used as lullabies and were collected by P.W. Joyce, and gave a few more words of the song:
Tow, row, row! Paddy, will you now?
Take me now, while I'm in humour;
And that's just--now!
"Take me now while I'm in humour" is said to be an alternate title for "Tow Row Row Johnny Take Me Now," but the melody does not correspond to Thomas Arne's song "Take Me Jenny (let me win you while I'm in in the humour)."
