Annotation:Cuckolds All in a Row
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CUCKOLDS ALL (IN) A ROW. AKA and see "Cuckolds All Awry," "Hey Boys Up Go We (1)." English, Jig (6/4 or 6/8 time). G Major (Raven): C Major (Chappell): D Major (Johnson). Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB (Chappell): AABB (Johnson, Raven). The air, in its country dance iteration, appears in John Playford's English Dancing Master of 1651 and in every subsequent edition through the end of the long-running series, with the 18th (1728), then published by John Young in London. "Cuckolds All Arow" was also published in all three editions of Walsh's Compleat Country Dancing Master (1718, 1731, 1754).
As with many Playford country dance tunes, the melody was also saw service as vehicle for a ballad (melodies were frequently used for both in the 17th and 18th centuries), registered in the Stationer's Register on June, 9, 1637, with words that are now lost but which began: "Not long ago, as all alone I lay upon my bed..." It was used as a party tune by the Cavaliers, according to Chappell (1859), who states that they sang the words of "Hey, boys, up go we" and "London's true character" to the tune. The latter song heaped abuse on the citizens of that town for siding against the King in the civil wars, and began "You coward-hearted citizens..."; it is printed in Rats rhimed to Death; or, The Rump Parliament hanged in the Shambles (1660) and in both editions of Loyal Songs written against the Rump Parliament. "Culcolds All a Row" is mentioned in the older song "O London in a fine town." Diarist Samuel Pepys (a middle-class government official with a long and successful career in the Navy office) attended a dance at the court of Charles II, misheard the name of the tune, and made this entry in his diary (which he kept in code) on the 31st of December, 1662:
Then to country dances; the King leading the first, which he called for; which was, says he, "Cuckolds all awry," the old dance of England. Of the ladies that danced, the Duke of Monmouth's mistress, and my Lady Castlemaine (the King's mistress) , and a daughter of Sir Harry de Vicke's, were the best. The manner was, when the King dances, all the ladies in the room, and the Queen herself, stand up; and indeed he dances rarely, and much better than the Duke of York. Having stayed there as long as I thought fit, to my infinite content, it being the greatest pleasure I could wish now to see at Court, I went home, leaving them dancing.
Interestingly, Pepys was a fiddler, and wrote in his entry for April 24, 1663:
After dinner all the afternoon fiddling upon my viallin (which I have not done many a day), while Ashwell (his wife's female servant) danced above in my upper best chamber, which is a rare room for musique.
Forest of Dean, Gloucester, fiddler Charles Baldwin's "Morris Call" is a version of "Cuckold all a row" [1]. Phillip Heath-Coleman points out that another Forest of Dean musician, Henry Allen, knew it under the title "Calling On," and that the melody was the vehicle for the Fieldtown (Leafield), Oxfordshire, Morris dance nicknamed "Signposts" AKA "Shepherd's Hey" (not the ususal tune by that name."
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Barlow (Complete Country Dance Tunes from Playford's Dancing Master), 1985; No. 19, p. 20. Barnes (English Country Dance Tunes), 1986 (appears as "Hey Boys, Up Go We"). Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Time), vol. 1, 1859; p. 306. Johnson (The Kitchen Musician No. 14: Songs, Airs and Dances of the 18th Century), 1997; p. 5. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 9 and p. 44.
Recorded sources: Familiar FAM 47, Pyewackett - "7 to Midnight" (1985). Island Records AN-700, Kirkpatrick & Hutchings - "The Compleat Dancing Master" (1974). Maggie's Music MMCD216, Hesperus - "Early American Roots" (1997). North Star NS0031, "Dance Across the Sea: Dances and Airs from the Celtic Highlands" (1990).