Annotation:Why should we quarrel for riches

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WHY SHOULD WE QUARREL FOR RICHES. English, Irish;Air (9/8 time). G Major/E Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). ABB. O’Farrell (c. 1810) assigns an Irish provenance for this sailor’s song, although it appears earlier in Allan Ramsay’s Tea-Table Miscellany (1719-20, London). The first verse and chorus go:

How pleasant a sailor's life passes,
Who roams o'er the watery main!
No treasure he ever amasses,
But cheerfully spends all his gain.
We're strangers to party and faction,
To honour and honesty true;
And would not commit a bad action<
br> For power or profit in view.
Chorus:
Then why should we quarrel for riches,
Or any such glittering toys;
A light heart, and a thin pair of breeches,
Will go through the world, my brave boys!

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Joyce (Old Irish Folk Muisc and Songs), 1909; No. 437, pp. 247 248. O’Farrell (Pocket Companion, vol. IV), c. 1810; p. 125.

Recorded sources:

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