Annotation:Push about the Jorum (1)

Back to Push about the Jorum (1)

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PUSH ABOUT THE JORUM [1]. AKA and see "Betsy Baker (1)," "Captain O'Neill," “Lads and Lasses (2),” "McClellantown Hornpipe," "Rowan Tree (1) (The)," "Rattle the Bottles (1)." Scottish, English; Country Dance, Strathspey or Reel. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Cole): AAB (Athole, Gow, O’Farrell): AABB' (Kerr). The title “Push about the jorum” means 'hurry up and pass the whiskey jar'. A jorum was “a chamberpot, used as a mug in drinking healths or toasts” (c.f. Legman, notes pp. 176-177 in The Merry Muses of Caledonia, by Robert Burns), and as such can be considered a ‘convivial tune’. Burns (no stranger to convivial assembly) used the tune as the vehicle for his bawdy songs “The Summer Morn” and “There’s Hair On’t.”

The tune predates Burns, and seems to have been first printed in England, where it appeared in several country dance collections beginning with Longman, Lukey & Broderip’s Bride's Favourite Collection of 200 Select Country Dances, Cotillons (London, 1776), followed by Thomas Skillern’s Compleat Collection of Two Hundred & Four Reels...Country Dances (1780), Charles and Samuel Thompson’s Compleat Collection of 200 Country Dances. Vol 4 (1780), and Longman and Broderip's Compleat Collection of 200 Favorite Country Dances (1781). From these and similar publications the tune was picked up by amateur musicians and appears in a number of period copybooks and commonplace books, including those of John Carter (England, 1792), Jeremiah Brown (1792, Seabrook, New Hampshire), fifer John Miller (1798, Strabane, Londonderry), and Ebenezer Bevens (c. 1825, Middletown, Connecticut); all under the title “Push about the Jorum.” It appears under a different title, “Lads and Lasses (2),” in the manuscript collections of William Vickers (1770, Northumberland) and Joshua Jackson (Yorkshire), and as "Betsy Baker" in George Spencer's manuscript (1831, Leeds, Yorkshire). A version also appears in Bayard (1944) as an untitled reel, collected in the mid-20th century in western Pennsylvania; see his note for "annotation:Honeycomb Rock (The)."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Aird (Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 1), 1782; No. 111, p. 39. Carlin (The Gow Collection), 1986; No. 312. Cole (1000 Fiddle Tunes), 1940; p. 122 (strathspey). Gow (Fifth Collection of Strathspey Reels), 1809; p. 20. Johnson (A Further Collection of Dances, Marches, Minuetts and Duetts of the Latter 18th Century), 1998; p. 15. Kerr (Merry Melodies, vol. 3), c. 1880’s; No. 61, p. 9 (reel). O’Farrell (Pocket Companion, vol. IV), 1810; p. 124. Ryan’s Mammoth Collection, 1883; p. 161. Saunders (New and Complete Instructor for the Violin), Boston, 1847; No. 12, p. 53. Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; p. 165.

Recorded sources:

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