Annotation:We've Cheated the Parson (1)

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WE'VE CHEATED THE PARSON [1]. AKA - "Boys and Girls Come Out to Play." English, Jig (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. "We Cheated the Parson" is also called "Your Hay it is Mow'd" or "Harvest Song" and was a favorite melody from King Arthur, set by English composer Henry Purcell in 1691 to a libretto by John Dryden. It appeared printed on broadside sheets soon afterward ("A New Playhouse song of the husband's delight, suiting the humours of a country Life") and was the vehicle for songs in ballad operas, such as Air XLVI in John Gay's ballad opera Polly (1729). There are two 6/4 or 6/8 melodies called "We've Cheated the Parson." One was printed by Henry Playford in Apollo's Banquet: The Second Book in 1691 and appears in numerous ballad operas such as Jovial Crew (1731), Lovers Opera (1730), Merry Cobler (1735), Mock Doctor (1732) and Old Man (1735). A second, different, melody was printed in John Gay's Polly (1729), reprinted in dancing master Thomas Wilson's Companion to the Ball Room (1816).

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Wilson (A Companion to the Ball Room), London, 1816; p. 92 (this was the air used by Gay in Polly).

Recorded sources:

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