Annotation:Night before Larry was Stretched (The)
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NIGHT BEFORE LARRY WAS STRETCHED, THE (An Oidce Roime Crocad Lamrais). AKA and see "To the hundreds of Drury I write." Irish, Air (9/8 time, "with spirit"). G Dorian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The song is a member of a group of 'Execution Songs' written in the 1780's in Newgate (prison) Cant or Slang Style. It was printed in The Festival of Anacreon (1789), where it was directed to be sung to the melody of "To the hundreds of Drury I write." The lyric begins:
Oh the night before Larry was stretched [i.e., hanged] The boys they all paid him a visit, A bait [food] in their sacks too they fetched, For they sweated their duds [pawned their clothes] till they ris it [rose it, i.e., got the money]. For Larry was ever the lad When a boy was condemned to the squeezer [noose] Would fence [sell] all the duds that he had For to help his poor friend to a sneezer [drink?] and warm his gob [mouth] 'fore he died.
The song is said to have been written by Will (Hurlfoot) Maher, a shoemaker from Waterford, albeit Dr. Robert Burrowes, the Dean of St. Finbar's Cork, is often attributed as the author.
Source for notated version: the tune was transcribed for O'Neill by Chicago police sergeant and fiddler James O'Neill, originally from northern Ireland [O'Neill].
Printed sources: O'Neill (Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies), 1903; No. 39, p. 7.
Recorded sources:
See also listing at:
Alan Ng's Irishtune.info [1]
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [2]