Annotation:My Friend and Pitcher

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MY FRIEND AND PITCHER. AKA and see "Wealthy Fool (The)." Irish, Air (4/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. The title is a phrase in John O’Keefe (lyrics) and William Shield's (music) opera, The Poor Soldier (1785), and was a well-known and commonly used term in the late 18th and 19th centuries as a term of fondness for a chum, crony, or familiar acquaintance, particularly one of the opposite sex. It was derived from a sentimental song in the opera that went:

My friend so rare, my girl so fair!
With such, what mortal can be rthicher?
Give me but these, a fig for care!
With my sweet girl, my friend and pitcher.

The tune was entered into The Buttery Manuscript (c. 1784-1820, No. 749), the copybook of John Buttery (1784-1854), who joined the 34th Regiment in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England, in 1797 and served as a fifer until discharged in 1814. His large ms. contains marches, duty calls, dance tunes and airs.

See note for "Annotation:Wealthy Fool (The)" for more.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: O'Farrell (National Irish Music for the Union Pipes), 1804; p. 26.

Recorded sources: