JACK AT GREENWICH. English, Air (whole time). A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. The song "Jack at Greenwich" was written by Charles Dibdin [1] (1745-1814), popular and prolific songwriter renowned for his sea songs. The first stanza of the song (which tells of Jack's gradual disablements) goes:
Charles Dibdin
We tars are all for fun and glee,-- A hornpipe was my notion; Time was I'd dance with any he That sails the salt sea ocean: I'd tip the roll, the slide, the reel, Back, forward, in the middle; And roast the pig, and toe and heel, All going with the fiddle. But one day told a shot to ram, To chase for foe advancing, A splinter queer'd my larboard gam, And, damme! spoil'd my dancing.
The song was written for Dibdin's three act entertainment The Cake-House, produced in 1800.
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Dibdin & Hogarth (The Songs of Charles Dibdin: Chronologically Arranged), 1848; pp. 252-254. Manson (Hamilton’s Universal Tune Book, vol. 2), 1846; p. 15.
Recorded sources: Tundra - "Songs from Greenwich."
