Annotation:Mousetrap (1) (The)

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MOUSETRAP [1], THE. AKA - "Mouse Trap (The)." AKA and see "Old Hob." English, Air (6/8 time). C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The air appears in Playford's Dancing Master (vol. ii), Pills to Purge Melacholy (1719), Watts' Musical Miscellany (1731), and The Beggar's Opera (1728) and other ballad operas. Chappell records that the words are by Thomas D'Urfey set to a tune that appeared first in a 1696 play written by Doggett called The Country Wake.

Of all the simple things we do,
To rub over a whimsical life;
There's no one folly is so true,
As that very bad bargain, a wife.
We're just like a mouse in a trap,
Or rat that is caught in a gin;
We start and fret, and try to escape,
And rue the sad hour we came in.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Time), vol. 2, 1859; p. 111.

Recorded sources:

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