Annotation:Chase Me Charlie
Tune properties and standard notation
CHASE ME CHARLIE. Irish, Slide (12/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. See note for "Cock of the North [3]," of which "Chase me, Charlie" is a version. The title comes from a bawdy ditty sung to the tune in the Ireland, Britain and Scotland, called "Auntie Mary (had a canary)" in many places, or "Chase Me Charlie." The words go:
Auntie Mary had a canary,
Up the leg of her drawers;
She pulled a s tring to hear it sing, or: She was sleepin', I was peepin',
And down came Santa Claus. Up the leg of her drawers.
CHO:
Chase me, Charlie, find my barley
Up the leg of me drawers;
Don't believe me, come and feel me,
Up the leg of my drawers.
Uncle Jock, he had a sock,
Up the pleat of his kilt;
When he was a-sleepin, we were a-peepin,
To see how well he was built.
Cousin Minnie wore a bikini,
Underneath her shirt;
A handsome guy he tried to spy,
And she kicked him where it hurt.
The latter is obviously a more recently composed verse, with its reference to a bikini, but there must be dozens of such doggerel verses in the tradition. Not incidentally, "Chase me, Charlie" is the title of a Charlie Chaplin comedy film from 1918, and the probably not
Source for notated version: "Session musicians in Newmarket, County Cork" [Sullivan].
Printed source: Sullivan (Session Tunes), vol. 3; No. 17, p. 7.
Recorded sources: Gael Linn CEF176, Jackie Daly - "Many's a Wild Night." Globestyle Irish CDORBD 085, The Kerry Fiddle Trio (Padraig O'Keefe, Denis Murphy, Julia Clifford) - "The Rushy Mountain" (1994. Reissue of Topic recordings). Tara 10029, Seamus Ennis - "The Best of Irish Piping."