Annotation:Night before Larry was Stretched (The)
X:1 T:Night before Larry was Stretch’d, The M:9/8 L:1/8 R:Air B:R.M. Levey – First Collection of the Dance Music of Ireland (1858, No,. 110, p. 43) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:Gmin (d/c/)|B>AG GDG G2B|AGF FCF ABc|B>AG GDG G2B| A>Bc cdc AF||F B>cd ded f2d|Bcd def ec>F| B>cd ded d2d|edc cdc ABc|B>AG A>G^F|G2||
NIGHT BEFORE LARRY WAS STRETCHED, THE (An Oidce Roime Crocad Lamrais). AKA and see "To the hundreds of Drury I write," "When Pettie came over the Glen." Irish, Air (9/8 time, "with spirit"). G Minor/Dorian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The song is a member of a group of 'Execution Songs' written in the 1780's in Newgate (prison) Cant or Slang Style. It was printed in The Festival of Anacreon (1789), where it was directed to be sung to the melody of "To the hundreds of Drury I write" (the first line of an English broadside entitled "The Bowman Prigg's Farewell" c. 1730). The lyric begins:
Oh the night before Larry was stretched [i.e., hanged]
The boys they all paid him a visit,
A bait [food] in their sacks too they fetched,
For they sweated their duds [pawned their clothes]
till they ris it [rose it, i.e., got the money].
For Larry was ever the lad
When a boy was condemned to the squeezer [noose]
Would fence [sell] all the duds that he had
For to help his poor friend to a sneezer [drink?]
and warm his gob [mouth] 'fore he died.
The song is has been attributed to many: Frank Harte remarks that it was written by Will (Hurlfoot) Maher, a shoemaker from Waterford, albeit Dr. Robert Burrowes, the Dean of St. Finbar's Cork, is often attributed as the author. Dan Milner believes it as penned by Thomas Moran (writing as Zozimus), the Dubliner broadside scribe. The Universal Songster (1828) prints the song, attributing it to "Curren," perhaps a reference to John Philpot Curran. Scottish fiddler-composer Robert Petrie included the melody in his Fourth Collection of Strathspeys, Reels, Jiggs and Country Dances (c. 1805) under the title "When Pettie came over the Glen."
Fr. John Quinn finds that "The Night before Larry was Stretched" belongs to a cohort of tunes, some similar and others more distantly related, that includes "Luke Caffrey's Ghost”/“Caffrey's Ghost”, “Virgin Queen (The)”, “Yellow Stockings”, “Butter'd Pease”, “Irish Disappointment (The)”, “Yellow Legs” / “Cosa Buidhe Arda Dearga” / “Cosabue/Cusabue Ord”, “Yellow Leggings”, and “Cogue in the Evening”.
