Annotation:Down the Wagon Way (2)

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DOWN THE WAGON WAY [2]. English, Country Dance Tune (4/4 time). England, Northumberland. D Minor/F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Frank Kidson (1890) identifies this as a Northumbrian pipe tune which he had from a MS collection dated about 1816 "by some person residing at Darlington or in the north." There evidently was once a song called "Down the Wagon Way," which perhaps survives in the nursery couplet:

Clap your hands for daddy,
Coming down the wagon way;
A pocket full of money,
And a cart load of hay.

Kidson may or may not have been referring to "Down the Wagon Way" in Northumbrian musician John Bell's (1783-1864) music manuscript collection of c. 1812 [1]. However, Kidson and Bell's two strains are reversed from each other. Bell also prints a lyric with the tune that begins:

An saw ye no my bonny lad,
Cum up the wagon way;
An saw ye no ma bonny lad,
Cum up the wagon way.

An his pockets full o' money,
An his pokes full o' hay;
An saw ye no ma bonny lad,
Cum up the way.

There is mony a bonny lad,
Along the wagon way;
O tell me whe's your canny lad--
Along the wagon way.

See also Niel Gow's cognate melody "Winna Gae to Bed."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Kidson (Old English Country Dances), 1890; p. 21.

Recorded sources:

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