Bob and Joan

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Theme code Index	311 312
Also known as	Boban John, Bobbing Joan, Bobbing Joe, Hey for Stoney Batter, Fill the Bumper Fair, Love and Whiskey, Stoneybatter (1)
Composer/Core Source
Region	Ireland
Genre/Style	Irish
Meter/Rhythm	Air/Lament/Listening Piece, March/Marche
Key/Tonic of	G
Accidental	1 sharp
Mode	Ionian (Major)
Time signature	3/4, 9/8
History
Structure	AABBCCD
Editor/Compiler	Biography:Henry Colclough
Book/Manuscript title	Book:Tutor for the Irish Union Pipes
Tune and/or Page number	p. 17
Year of publication/Date of MS	c. 1830
Artist
Title of recording
Record label/Catalogue nr.
Year recorded
Media
Score ()

BOB AND JOAN. See "Boban John," "Bobbing Joan," "Bobbing Joe," "Hey for Stoney Batter," "Fill the Bumper Fair," "Love and Whiskey," "Stoneybatter (1)." Irish, Air or March (9/8). G Major (Colclough): D Major (Kennedy). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Roche): AABB (Breathnach): AABB' (Kennedy). A variant of the Scottish tune "Boban John" here given in a different time signature, although based on a triple hornpipe (3/2 time) theme that goes by various titles. The air was used in the opera The Wife of Two Husbands for the song "Love and Whiskey," to which Thomas Moore later wrote "Fill the Bumper Fair." Breathnach (1963) gives these words:

Hi for Bob and Joan,
Hi for Stoneybatter;
Leave your wife at home
Or surely I'll be at her.

Crofton Croker mentions "Bob and Joan" in conjunction with James Gandsey (1769-1857), the famous Kerry piper (as reported by Brendan Breathnach in The Man and His Music {1997}). Gandsey, who was nearly blind from smallpox contracted as an infant, nevertheless was an incomparable talent of his time on his instrument, whose talents also included telling a good story, singing a good song and holding his own at capping Latin verses (a skill learned as a youth in a hedge school) with any educated person in the county. Croker describes several musical encounters with Gandsey at Gorham's Hibernian Hotel, at one of which a request was made of the piper for a lively song. "Come boy, scrape away," said Gandsey to his son, a fiddler, and responded by singing "Bob and Joan," to which he had set his own words:

To Killarney we will go,
And see fair nature's beauties,
The mountain topped with snow,
And covered with arbutus.
Oh! Then, to hear at night,
At Gorham's, how entrancing,
Old Gandsey play his pipes,
Which steps the maids a dancing!
Tow, row, row, row, row etc.

See also Robert Bremner's related "Miss Murray’s Reel (2)."

Source for notated version: piper Seán Potts (Ireland) [Breathnach].

Printed sources: Breathnach (CRÉ I), 1963; No. 63, p. 27. Colclough (Tutor for the Irish Union Pipes), c. 1830; p. 17. Johnson (A Further Collection of Dances, Marches, Minuetts and Duetts of the Latter 18th Century), 1998; p. 3. Kennedy (Fiddler's Tune Book: Slip Jigs and Waltzes), 1999; p. 4, No. 6. Roche Collection, vol. II, 1982; No. 343, p. 61.

X:1
T:Bob and Joan
M:3/4
L:1/8
S:Colclough - Tutor for the Irish Union Pipes (c. 1830)
Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion
K:G
BGGE G2 | BGGBAc | BGGE G2 | D/E/F/G/ A/B/A/G/ FA :|
|: GBdG B2 | G/A/B/c/ d/e/f/g/ Bd | GB d/e/d/c/ B2 cAADFA :|
|: gbdgBd | g/b/c'/b/ ag fa | gbef gf/g/ | addd fa :|
|| G/E/B/E/ C/E/B/E/ G2 | G/B/d/g/ c/B/A/G/ F/G/A/B/ | G/E/B/E/ c/E/B/E/ G2 | F/G/A/B/ AD FA | 
G/E/B/E/ C/E/B?E/ G2 | G/A/B/c/ d/e/d/c/ d>g | c'/b/a/g/ b/a/g/f/ g>f | eA A/B/A/G/ FA ||