Annotation:Petticoat Loose (3)
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PETTICOAT LOOSE [3].' AKA and see “Captain's Lady,” “Come try't again,” “My Petticoat's Loose,” “My Petticoats lowse.” English, Scottish, Irish; Jig. G Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Howe, Kerr): AAB (Gow): AABB (Williamson). The melody appears first in print in John Johnson’s Choice Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, vol. 4 (London, 1748), and in John Walsh's Country Dances Selected, part 1 (London, 1748, also called Caledonian Country Dances, volume ii, part i, p. 51). London publishers Charles and Samuel Thompson published it in their 1757 country dance collection, and again in their 1758 tutor for the hautboy (oboe). Across the Channel, it was included in Benoit Andrez’s Recueil de Contredances Angloises (Liege, 1780). John Glen (Early Scottish Melodies, 1900) suggested a Scottish provenance, evidently on the basis of the tunes inclusion in Walsh's Caledonian volume, and says: "Walsh's version of the tune is better and more Scottish in character than that given by [William] Chappell, which we presume he has taken from Thompson. The tune has long been known as a Scottish Jig." The melody was published by the Gows in Edinburgh toward the end of the 18th century, but James S. Kerr, publishing a century later in Glasgow, Scotland, identified the tune as Irish (albeit a different tune than the Irish tunes printed by O'Neill as "Petticoat Loose (2)" and "Petticoat Loose (2)"). There is no other evidence to assign an Irish provenance for the jig, which, at any rate has a long history in English tradition. The Thompsons printed the tune on the same page with “Breeches Loose,” enhancing the mildly risqué interpretation of the titles.
The tune was also entered into the c. 1776-1778 music copybook of fifer Thomas Nixon Jr. [1] (1762-1842), of Framingham, Connecticut. Nixon was a thirteen-year-old who accompanied his father to the battles of Lexington and Concord, and who served in the Continental army in engagements in and around New York until 1780, after which he returned home to build a house in Framingham. The copybook appears to have started by another musician, Joseph Long, and to have come into Nixon’s possession. Northumbrian musician John Bell (1783-1864) included it in his c. 1812 music manuscript collection [2].
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Anonymous (A Companion to the reticule), 1833; p. 8. Gow (Complete Repository, Part 1), 1799; p. 10. Howe (1000 Jigs and Reels), c. 1867; p. 124. Kerr (Merry Melodies, vol. 2), c. 1880's; No. 280, p. 30. Thompson (Compleat Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, vol. 1), 1757; No. 197. Walsh (Country Dances Selected, Part 1), 1748; No. 311, p. 51 [3]. Williamson (English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish Fiddle Tunes), 1976; p. 61.
Recorded sources: