BLACK JOKE [1]. AKA and see "Black Joker," "Black Jack," "Black Jock," "The Black Joak," "But the House and Ben the House" (Shetland), "Sprig of Shillelah" [1]. English, Scottish, Shetlands; Country Dance, Jig and Morris Dance Tune (6/8 time). England; Northumberland, Yorkshire. G Major (Bacon, Carlin, Cooke, Mallinson, Raven, Vickers): A Major (Bacon, Gow, Merryweather & Seattle). Standard or AEAE (McLean). AB (Bacon {Stanton Harcourt}, Gow): AAB {x6} (Bacon {Ilmington}, Carlin, Cooke (two versions), Mallinson {Adderbury version}): AABB {x4} (Hall & Stafford, Mallinson {Bledington version}, Merryweather & Seattle, Raven, Vickers). "The Black Joke" was a widely popular, vulgar and bawdy street song in England in the early 1700's, though its popularity continued into the 19th century in that country and its colonies (including America). Irregular in form in many versions, its opening phrase has six measures, while the second has ten. It was heard in London as early as 1734 in Henry Carey's burlesque stage piece Chrononhotonthologos where it was called "that lowbrow little tune that has been used as an interval tune for years," referring to the music for dances performed in the entr'acte interval at the playhouses. Early English collections which contain the tune are Johnson's Wrights Collection (London, c. 1742) and Thompson 200 Country Dances Volume II. John Kirkpatrick (1976) dates the tune to 1715 without citing his source.
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It is played today as the tune for the Lichfield Morris Dance The Barefooted Quaker, and for dances from other morris traditions. Mallinson's morris dance tune versions, for example, are from the Adderbury and Bledington areas of England's Cotswolds, while Bacon's are from the Adderbury, Ascot-under-Wychwood, Bledington, Ilmington, and Stanton Harcourt. A version of the tune from Badby, Northhamptonshire, is known as "Old Black Joe" [1], and lacks the distinctive two measure ending to both parts typical of most "Black Joke" versions. John Kirkpatrick (1976) is of the opinion that the Badby dance "flows more perfectly than any in the Cotswold Morris. No jumps, no jerky backwards movements, no need to fiddle the feet to get them right. An absolute joy." The tune collected with the dance in Bucknell (under the title "Old Black Joe") is perhaps nearest the original.
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The tune is known as "But the House and Ben the House" in Shetland, and Cooke says some informants gave the first lines as:
But your house and ben your house
This house is like a bridal house.
The tune played by his source from the islands was the one commonly known throughout Britain and Ireland during the 18th century as "The Black Joke" (or Jock). A variety of songs were set to it, all of them bawdy and all concerned with sexual intercourse. "Some of the texts are the creations of music-hall hacks, such as the earliest published verses, entitled 'The Original black Joke, Sent from Dublin', which begin: 'No mortal sure can blame ye man/Who prompted by nature will act as he can'...(song sheet, c. 1720 Mitchell Library, Glasgow). Simple and more direct 'folk' versions were known in Scotland. Burns wrote a parody beginning 'My girl she's airy...'" (Cooke, 1986). The lyrics which appear below are taken from Andrew Crawford's 1826-28 Collection of Ballads and Songs:
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A wee black thing sat on a cushion
Was hairy without and toothless within
Wi' her black Jock and her belley so white
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A piper and twa little drummers came there
To play wi the wee thing well covered o'er wi hair
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The piper went in and he jigged about
The twa little drummers stood ruffling without
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But when he came out he hang doon his head
He look'd like a snail that was trodden to dead
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Say's he thay wa'd need to hae something to spare
That meddle wi you or your wee pickle hair. (Cooke)
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Cooke's informant, John Irvine, played it as a middle tune between two reels for the ceremony of the "bedding of the bride" around the turn of the century. This ceremony, in which the women of the community escorted the bride to her bed, was performed to fiddle music. "The use of the 'Black Joke' in this context is intriguing, Robert Irvine's knowledge of part of the chorus suggests that in earlier days the whole song might have been known and, unless the fiddler was having his own private joke by playing this piece, possibly even sung by the bride's attendants. Genuine bawdry is often found in such situations elsewhere in the world. According to Legman (1964), 'the purpose of such songs...was and is evidently apotropaic, being intended to ward off the evil eye...dangerously present at all moments of happiness, or of success and victory' (The Horn Book, 1964, p. 388). It is likely, too, that such humour served to release anxiety on the part of the young initiate. Finally, if the text were anything like the Crawfurd text, the explicit detail could have served also as a piece of last-minute sex education--an example of how music is sometimes used in a situation that allows one to sing what might be too embarrassing to say" (Cooke, 1986).
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The Scotch versions are based on an English tune which was known as "Black Jock" in Scotland from about 1735 (Johnson). Johnson thinks the name was changed either on purpose, to 'Scottisize' it (it was known as "Black Jack" in Northumberland), or to distance it from the extremely obscene lyrics. If the latter, the distancing was largely hypocriphal, for the lyrics were well-known throughout the country. The Scots poet Robert Burns (who was no stranger to ribaldry) penned to the melody, in September, 1784, the words "My girl she's airy, she's buxom and gay," one of his earliest bawdy songs:
Her slender neck, her handsome waist,
Her hair well buckl'd, her stays well lad'd,
Her taper white leg with an et, and a, c,
For her a,b,e,d, and her c,u,n,t,
And Oh, for the joys of a long winter night!!!
The tune appears in the McFarlane Manuscript (1740) in a long variation set (18 strains) by Charles McLean, in Bremner's Scots Tunes (1759) in 30 strains, the Gillespie Manuscript (1768), the Sharpe Manuscript (c. 1790) with 18 strains, and a flute MS. of c. 1770; all have basically the same variations, though in different order.
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In Ireland, Flood (1906) reports that Madame Violante set off a furor in Dublin's Smock-Alley Theatre in December, 1729, when Cummins danced the "White Joke," a set off to the then-popular "Black Joke."
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American audiences heard the melody as the tune for air 13 in Andrew Barten's ballad opera The Disappointment (New York, 1767).
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Sources for notated versions: Bremner (Scots Tunes, 1759) [Johnson]; John Mason via Cecil Sharpe (Stow on the Wold, England) [Bacon]; a MS by fiddler Lawrence Leadley, 1827-1897 (Helperby, Yorkshire) [Merryweather & Seattle]. Bacon (The Morris Ring), 1974, pgs. 15, 95, 210, 295. Carlin (The Master Collection of Dance Music for Violin), 1984; No. 47, pg. 37. Cooke (The Fiddle Tradition of the Shetland Isles), 1986; pgs. 86-87. Gow (Complete Collection), Part 4, 1817; pg. 10 (appears as "Black Jock"). Hall & Stafford (Charlton Memorial Tune Book), 1974; pg. 20 (appears as "Black Jack"). Johnson (Scottish Fiddle Music in the 18th Century), 1984; No. 32, pgs. 86-89. Mallinson (Mally's Cotswold Morris Book), 1988; No. 1, pg. 8 and No. 35, pg. 24. Merryweather & Seattle (The Fiddler of Helperby), 1994; No. 81, pgs. 48-49 (includes six sets of variations). Offord (John of Greeny Cheshire Way), 1985; pg. 107. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; pg. 116 (Black Jack), 81 & 95. Seattle (William Vickers), 1987, Part 2; No. 206. Gourd Music 110, Barry Phillips - "The World Turned Upside Down" (1992). Topic TSCD458, John Kirkpatrick - "Plain Capers" (1976).
T:Black Jock
L:1/8
M:6/8
S:Gow - 4th Repository
K:A
E|E2A AGA|BcB BAB|c>dc cBA|BcB BAF|A3 F2E|EFA A2 E/D/|
(CE)A AGA|(Bd)c BAG|(Ac)e edc|Bdc {c}BAG|~A>Bc ~F>GA|
EFG A2||d|(c2d e2)e|fdf {f}e2d|c2d e>fe|f>ga edc|d2b c2a|BcB {c}BAB|
~c>dc cBA|B>cB BAF|A3 ~F2E|EFA A2d|(cA)c (ec)e|(fd)f e2d|
(cA)c (ec)e|(fd)f {f}e2c|ddd ccc|Bdc B2A|(Ac)e (ed)c|(Bd)c {c}BAG|
~A>Bc ~F>GA|EFG A2||
BUMPER(S,) SQUIRE JONES. AKA and see "Thomas Morres Jones." Irish, Air (6/8 time). D Major. Standard. AB. Composed by blind Irish harper Turlough O'Carolan (1670-1738). Though not often added, a coma should appear in the title after the first word rendering the title's meaning a cup filled to the brim in toast to Squire Jones ('bumpers'). Thus the song belongs in the group of O'Carolan's bacchanalian compositions, for which he was justly famous, though the English paraphrase of the original Gaelic was not written until 1730 when it was rendered by Arthur Dawson, Baron of the Exchequer. In fact, O'Carolan composed the song prior to October, 1729, according to an entry in the diary of young Charles O'Conor, a harp pupil of the bards, who wrote: "Wednesday, 8th. I got Squire Jones from him today, and no thanks to him for that." There has been some speculation that the tune was originally composed by a London dancing master and published by Playford in 1703 as "The Rummer," although Donal O'Sullivan, in his definitive work on O'Carolan, concludes that the commonalties of the two tunes are not enough to sustain the assertion. O'Sullivan does conclude that the English lyrics were penned by Dawson and that they are far superior to O'Carolan's "indifferent" Irish lyric. The composition was publicly championed for O'Carolan by Bunting, after he found attributions in the 1780 issue of the bard's tunes by S. Lee and in The Hibernian Muse (c. 1787). The tune is in Himes' reissue of O'Carolan's tunes, c. 1800-10, though Hime did not credit it to the harper when he printed it in New Selection...Original Irish Airs (c. 1800).
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The Squire Jones referred to, states Flood (1906), was Thomas Morris Jones of Moneyglass, Co. Leitrim, and not, as Bunting asserts, Mr. Jones of Moneygalss, Co. Antrim. O'Neill (1913) relates that while enjoying the hospitality of the Squire O'Carolan composed a song for him, as was his custom. There are two versions of what happened next, and either a man named Moore or one Baron Dawson, overheard the harper composing in private in his rooms. Thinking to play a jest on the blind bard, the personage (who was musically trained) memorized the melody and even wrote his own words to it, and when O'Carolan played and sang the composition the next day it was vigorously asserted that the melody was not newly composed, but an old song, and the Baron (or Moore) played his version. O'Carolan, of course, flew into one of his famous rages, but was eventually mollified by explanations and not a few toasts. The song was sung the year Squire Jones died by the famous English tenor Thomas Lowe at the Theatre Royal, Aungier Street, Dublin on December 8th, 1743, at a benefit given by Madamoiselle Chateauneuf, and it must have been a showcase number for him as the song with music was printed over a decade later (in 1754) in the Liverpool-published Muses Delight with the note "sung by Mr. Lowe." The song and tune appear The Gentleman's Magazine (1744) including dance directions along with the note that James (or Jack) Beard sang it in The Provok'd Wife, and song and tune also appear in The Merry Medley, or A Christmas-Box for Gay Gallants and Good Companions, II (1745). The song (without the tune) was printed in The Canary Bird (1745) and the tune was printed by Thumoth in 12 English and 12 Irish Airs (c. 1745) where it is identified as English. Finally, it appears in Henry Brooke's opera Little John and the Giants, performed in Dublin in 1748 as Jack the Giant Queller. In none of the above was a composer or author credited. A reference to the song is made in Smollett's novel Peregrine Pickle (1751). Complete Collection of Carolan's Irish Tunes, 1984; No. 65, pg. 58. O'Neill (Krassen), 1976; pg. 230. O'Neill (1850), 1903/1979; No. 639, pg. 114.
T:Thomas Morres Jones or Bumper Squire Jones
C:Turlough O'Carolan
S:Carolan: The Life, Times and Music of an Irish Harper
S:by Donal O'Sullivan
Z:transcribed by Paul de Grae
M:6/8
L:1/8
A/G/ | FDD D2 E | F/G/AF G/A/BA | BEF G2 A/G/ |
FED d2 e | fed edc | dBe cAc | dDD D ||
f/g/ | afa dfa | bgb efg | faf ged | cAA A2 g |
f/g/af geg | f/g/af geg | fed cBc | dDD D2 ||
LILLIBULERO. AKA - "Lilly Bullery." AKA and see "Bumpers Are Flowing," "Carawath Jig," "De bheatha ad' shlainte, Ui Shuilleabhain Mhoir," "Gogai o gog," "Green Goose Fair," "Irlandais (Jig)," "Jolly Companions," "The modes of the Court so common have grown," "Montrosse's March," "My Lord Mayor's Delight," "Old Woman Wither So High," "The Onehorned Cow," "Orange and Green Will Carry the Day," "The Pretender's March," "Protestant Boys," "The Retreat," "A rock and a wee pickle tow," "The Scotch March." English, Irish; Air (6/8 time) or Jig. England, Northumberland. A Major (Cole, Miller & Perron, Raven, Sweet): G Major (Barnes, Merryweather, Sharp, Stanford/Petrie, Seattle/Vickers): D Major (Chappell, Scott). Standard. AB (Cole, Raven, Stanford/Petrie): AAB (Chapell, Scott): ABB (Sharp): AABB (Barnes, Merryweather, Miller & Perron, Seattle, Sweet). The the words of the chorus or burden of the song, lero, lero, lillibulero bullen-a-lah, purportedly were, according to a contemporary (Protestant) chronicle quoted by the English musicologist Chappell (1859), Irish Gaelic "words of disctinction used among the Irish Papists in their massacre of Protestants in 1641." Other suggestions for the meaning of the burden are that it was a stage convention for "foreigner's dialect" used in 17th century English plays to denote unfamiliar languages. Another explanation is that it is a corruption of the Gaelic phrase "An lile ba léir é; ba linn an lá," which translates as "The (Orange) lily was (the most) evident; we carried the day," which would fit with the political associations of the song.
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"Lillibulero," Chappell goes on to say, was an anonymously composed Whig tune (i.e. joined to various anti-Catholic words) and the British army's song during the Revolution of 1688 in which William of Orange defeated James II. A "party tune," includes Kidson (1922), which was disseminated on the authority of Bishop Burnet. It was immensely popular from the time of its introduction and not a little influential from a political standpoint as it was used as a rallying call for the Protestants. In fact, "Lillibulero" has been called the "tune that drove James out of three countries" (i.e. England, Scotland and Ireland). Pepys says: "Slight and insignificant as (the words) may now seem, they had once a more powerful effect than either the Philippies of Demosthenes or Cicero; and contributed not a little towards the great revolution in 1688." It was played by the Williamites (followers of William of Orange who became William III of England) during the Irish War of 1689-1691 and very probably at the battle of the Boyne, according to Winstock (1970). Johnson (Stenhouse ed.) asserts that the tune was derived from "Jumping Joan" (AKA "Joan's Placket is Torn"), but Bayard (1981) and Glen disagree.
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The English composer Henry Purcell has been credited with the tune, often described as one of his harpsichord lessons. It was ascribed to him by Playford (1689) and especially later by Chappell (1859), but other musicologists believe there is little direct evidence for this and it is more likely that it was a simply a folk tune; Kidson (1922) states simply the tune was arranged by Purcell for a printing in 1686. That the tune was well-known in the 17th century there can be no doubt, as it is referenced in period literature. Emmerson (1971), for example, reports a description from 17th century literature of a scene in London:
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Some were dancing to a bagpipe; others whistling to a Base Violin,
two Fiddlers scraping Lilla burlero, My Lord Mayor's Delight, upon
a couple of Crack'd Crowds.
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Regarding the lyrics, Chapell reports they were ascribed to Lord Wharton and Lord Dorset, but he thinks neither likely to have written them. The words satirise the Irish Jacobite Richard Talbot, Duke of Tyrconnell, and King James' agent in Ireland who was a key figure in the intrigues for returning James to power and involving the French in the struggle for Irish freedom (he ended his life as an exile in France). Though the song appears in numerous publications, Chappell found the earliest printing to be in a collection called The Muses' Farewell to Poetry and Slavery (1689). There is an old song called "There Was an Old Fellow at Waltham Cross" that uses a combination of strains sounding like both "Lillibulero" and "Dargason;" "Waltham Cross" was published in 1640 and Bayard (1981) thinks this suggests evidence of the existence of both "Lillibulero" and "Dargason" before the 1680's. Early versions of the air were published in Henry Playford's The Second Part of Music's Handmaid (1689), Robert Carr's The Delightful Companion, or Choice New Lessons for the Recorder or Flute (1686), set for keyboard by Purcell in Musick's Handmaid (1689), D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy, as the bass of 'Jig' in The Gordian Knot Untied (1691) and John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1729, where it appears under the title "The modes of the Court so common have grown") and numerous other ballad operas. Alternate songs set to the tune include "Dublin's Deliverance; or, The Surrender of Drogheda" (Pepys Collection), "Undaunted London-derry; or, The Victorious Protestants' constant success against the proud French and Irish forces" (Bagford Collection), "The Courageous Soldiers of the West" (Bagford Collection), "The Reading Skirmish" (Bagford Collection), "The Protestant Courage" (Roxburghe Collection), and "Courageous Betty of Chick Lane" (Roxburghe Collection).
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The version of the words ascribed to Wharton begin:
Ho Brother Teaghe, dost hear de decree?
Lillibulero, bullen a la,
Dat we shall have a new Deputie.
Lillibulero, bullen a la
Lero, lero, Lillibulero,
Lillibulero, bullen a la
Lero, lero, lillibulero
Lillibulero, bullen a la.
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In Songs of the British Isles, author Jerry Silverman reports that as late as the American Civil War the English musicologist Francis James Child used the tune for another satire, called "Overtures from Richmond" which ridiculed the Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy.
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Aird (Selection), 1782, Vol. 2, No. 481. Barnes (English Country Dance Tunes), 1986. Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Time), Vol. 2, 1859; pg. 58. Cole (1001 Fiddle Tunes), 1940; pg. 52. Harding Collection (1915) and Harding Original Collection (1928), No. 197. Jarman, 1951; pg. 64. JIFSS, XV, pg. 13. Kerr (Merry Melodies), Vol. 2, No. 213 and Vol. 4, No. 228. Merryweather (Merryweather's Tunes for the English Bagpipe), 1989; pg. 45 (two versions). Miller & Perron (New England Fiddler's Repertoire), 1983; No. 14. Moffat (202 Gems of Irish Melody), pg. 79. O'Lochlainn, 1939; No. 36. O'Neill (1850), 1903/1979; No. 19. Oswald (Caledonian Pocket Companion), 1780?, Vol. 2, pg. 13. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; pg. 63. Scott, 1926; pg. 6. Sharp (Country Dance Tunes), 1911-22; Set VIII, pg. 19. Seattle (William Vickers), 1987, Part 2; No. 373 (appears as "Lilly Bullery"). Sharp (Country Dance Tunes), 1909/1994; pg. 56. Stanford/Petrie (Complete Collection), 1905; No. 503, pg. 127. Sweet, 1965/1981; pg. 22. Thompson (Hiberian Muse), 1786. Walsh (Compleat Country Dancing Master), 1731; Vol. 1, No. 38. RCA 09026-60916-2, The Chieftains - "An Irish Evening" (1991).
T:Lilliburlero
B:Irish Street Ballads, Colm O'Lochlainn
N:transposed from key of E
Z:Transcribed by Paul de Grae
M:6/8
L:1/8
K:G
GAG B2 B|ABA c3|B<dG c2 B|AGF G3:|
g2 d e2 d|g2 d e2 d|def gfe|dcB A3|
edc Bcd|d2 B A2 c|B<dG c2 B|AGF G3||
LITTLE PICKLE. Scottish, Jig. A Major. Standard. AABB. Composed by Joseph Lowe, who published a collection of dance music in the 1840's. Cranford (Jerry Holland's), 1995; No. 205, pg. 59.