Annotation:Room for a Rover

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X:1 % T:Room for a Rover T:Blackbird, The C:James Peasable M:3/2 L:1/8 B:D'Rufey - Pills to Purge Melancholy, vol. 2 (1719) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G G2d4cB A2G2 | G2d2e2 f2g4 | A2a4 gf e2d2 | A2d4^c2d4 :|B2e4^d2e2B2 | B2e4^d2e4 | A2d4^c2d2A2 | G2 d4 ^c2 d4|G2c4 B2c2 BA| GA Bc defd f2G2|g2 fe defd g2G2|g2 fed c2 BA G4||

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ROOM FOR A ROVER. AKA - "The Blackbird." English, ‘Old’ or Triple Hornpipe (3/2 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. The song "Room for a Rover" was printed in Thomas D’Urfy’s Wit and Mirth; or, Pills to Purge Melancholy, vol. 2, around the year 1705. The words were by D'Urfey, but the tune was set to "a Tune of Mr. Peasable's call'd ye new Dance." A later edition of Pills (1719) gives the title as "The Blackbird: A New Song", the first two stanzas of which go:

Room, room, room for a Rover,
Yonder Town's so hot;
I a Country Lover
Bless my Freedom got:
This Celestial Weather
Such enjoymnent gives,
We like Birds flock hither,
Browzing on green leaves:
Some who late sate Scowling,
Publick Cheats to mend;
Study now with Bowling,
Each to Cheat his Friend:

Cho:
Wilst on the Hawthorn Tree, Terry rerry, rerry, rerry, rerry,
rerry, rerry, sings the Blackbird, Oh what a World have we.

In the Easter Regions,
Cannibals abound;
Eas'd of all Religions,
Man does Man confound:
But our worser Natives,
Here Church-Rules obey;
Yet like Barb'rous Castiffs,
Gorge up more than they:
In the Town, hot Follies,
Fools to Faction draw;
Nonsence, Noise and Malice,
Passes too for Law: