Annotation:Peggy of Darby

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PEGGY OF DARBY. AKA and see "Brandy O," "Dandy O (1) (The)." English, Air and Country Dance (2/4 or whole time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. See Bruce Olson's extensive and excellent notes on this song family at the Digital Tradition [1]. They read, in part:

[The song appears earliest]...in a play published in 1785,Two to One, written by George Colman (the younger), and produced the previous year. The music for the play, composed and/or arranged by Dr. Samuel Arnold, was published separately from the play text, but with the play title, on July 5, 1784. The tune is Air V, p. 16, with the title "Peggy of Derby O!". The tune is a vocal arrangement with instrumental introduction and conclusion, and is a setting for Colman's song on "Little Tippet." This song is without title in the play, and without title or tune direction in a songbook, The New Vocal Enchantress, London, 1789, p. 275, but Colman's song was also published with the title "The Dandy O!" in the same year in The Charms of Chearfulness, p. 11, London, again without tune direction. This song, one of Colman's earliest, is not one of his better efforts, even to this tune, as we shall see later.

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