Annotation:Drunken Sailor (1)
X:2 T:Drunken Sailor [1] M:2/4 L:1/8 B:O'Flannagan - Hibernia Collection (Boston, 1860) N:This is one of Elias Howe's publications Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G D|GG/G/ GG|BdBG|AA/A/ AA|FAFD| GG/G/ GG|BdBG|eg f/g/a/f/|g3|| e|gg/a/ bg|fa fd|ee/f/ gf/e/|dgdB| c/B/c/d/ ed/c/|Bdgf|eg f/g/a/f/|g2z:||
DRUNKEN SAILOR [1], THE. AKA and see "Columbus Cotillion," "Quick Step South Fencibles." English, Country Dance Tune (2/4 time); American, Dance Tune. USA, Michigan, southwestern Pa. D Major (Raven): G Major (Ford, Sweet). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (O'Flannagan): AABB (Ford, Raven): AABBCC (Sweet). The tune has been used for numerous songs, play-party tunes, and ditties, including "Ten Little Indians" and "The Monkey's Wedding." It is a precursor to the play-party song "Going to Boston," and the old-time tune "Goodbye Girls I'm Going to Boston." As a children's rhyme/song the melody was at one time heard as "One little, two little, three little Indians" or "Here we sit like birds in the wilderness." Bayard (1981) thought that the tune was a simplified version of the Irish hornpipe called "Groves (The)" (O'Neill's Music of Ireland, Nos. 1598 & 1703), which in turn seemed to him to have been based on a "simple, fundamental strain" of the Scottish "Johnny Cope (1)." Ralph Sweet, in his collection for the fife, tacked on as a third part to the usual two parts of the tune the first part of the nautical melody known as "Earl-ie in the Morning." Fuld, in The Book of World Famous Music, traced the tune to manuscript collections of around 1800 and in print to the mid-1820's. However, origins have been further clarified by Fr. John Quinn who identifies the tune as "Quick Step South Fencibles", a march published in Glasgow by James Aird in 1785.
The first two and a half measures correspond to the beginning of Abraham Mackintosh's "Miss Bigg of Benton's Strathspey" (c. 1797), AKA "Miss Stewart (3)."
