Annotation:White Bread and Butter

Back to White Bread and Butter

---

WHITE BREAD AND BUTTER (Im agus aran ban). Irish, Air (3/4 time, "gaily"). A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. O'Neill (in his Irish Folk Music, Chapt. IV) identifies "White Bread and Butter" as a Munster song that tells of a wandering laborer, or 'spalpeen', among the farmers in harvest time. The air is shared with the Ulster song "Croppy Tailor."

Source for notated version: fiddler and Chicago police Sergeant James O’Neill, Francis O’Neill’s collaborator [O’Neill].

Printed sources: O'Neill (Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies), 1903; No. 402, p. 70.

Recorded sources:

---