Annotation:Off to California (1)

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X:1 T:Off to California [1] L:1/8 M:4/4 R:Hornpipe K:G D/E/F|GFGB AGED|GBdg e2 d/e/f|gfgd edBG|ABAG E2 D/E/F| GFGB AGED|GBdg e2 d/e/f|gfgd edBG|AGEF G2:| |:Bd|gfeg fedf|edef edBd|gfgd edBG|ABAG E2 D/E/F| GFGB AGED|GBdg e2 d/e/f|gfgd edBG|AGEF G2:||

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OFF TO CALIFORNIA [1] (Imtigte go California). AKA and see "Going to California," "Humors of California" "Whisky Hornpipe (The)," "Whiskey You're the Devil," "Whiskey in the Jar (1)," “Portsmouth Hornpipe," "Possum up a Gum Stump (1)," "Old Towser," “Miss Johnson’s Hornpipe,” "Gypsy Hornpipe (4)," "Buttermilk and Cider" (Pa.), "Fireman's Reel." Irish, English, American; Hornpipe. USA; New England, southwestern Pa. G Major (most versions): A Major (Craig). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Doyle, Silberberg): AABB (most versions). The hornpipe probably has an Irish provenance, although the melody has been adopted by several genres. The first part combines with other parts for "Fireman's Reel," "I'm Waiting for You (2)," "Silver Cluster," "Five Miles Out of Town" and the Texas-collected "Mabel." A version from the North of England appears as “A Clog Dance” in Doyle's Plain Brown Tune Book, the modern publication of selections from the c. 1847 manuscript of Ellis Knowles, a musician from Radcliffe, Lancashire. Seattle fiddler, producer and folklorist Vivian Williams found a version of “Off to California” in a hand-written music manuscript book dating from the 1860’s and 1870’s from western Oregon, where the melody is titled only as “Jig Cotillion.” Like many such manuscripts, it belonged to a musical family, and tunes were entered in different hands probably by different generations. Francis O’Neill also collected the tune in California in the mid-19th century. See also the related “Hillside Cottage” and the reel “You Bet.” "Far from Home" is sometimes confused as a member of the tune family, owing to its similar form (AA'BA, where the latter part of the 2nd strain returns to repeat the beginning of the 1st strain melody) and to the melodic and harmonic similarity of the 2nd strain, particularly in the first four measures. The melody may also have been called "Lexington," although this name is shared with other tunes.

The first strain of "Going to California [1]" is shared with "Clog Dance (2)" in Aberdeen publisher Thomas Craig's Empire Collection of Hornpipes, printed around the turn of the 20th century, and with William Bradbury Ryan's "Leviathan Hornpipe (2)." The second strains of the tunes are different from each other.