Annotation:Footy Agyen The Wa'

Back to Footy Agyen The Wa'

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FOOTY AGYEN THE WA'. AKA and see "Peacock's Fancy (1)." English, Country Dance Tune (6/8 time). England, Northumberland. E Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The song "Footy" was sung to the air "Peacock's Fancy." It appears in the c. 1812 music manuscript book of Northumbrian musician John Bell [1] (1783-1864), who also printed it in his collection Rhymes of Northern Bards. The words were considered vulgar in Victorian times, and so were not printed by Bruce & Stokoe (Northumbrian Minstrelsy, 1883) and others. Bell's lyric begins:

Fra Benton Bank to Benton Town,
There's not a Pitman raw;
So when ye get to the Moor Yate,
Play footy again the wa'?
Then hie footy and how footy,
And footy again the wa';
And when ye get to the Moor Yate,
Play footy again the wa'.

In Bell's Northern Bards he notes that the song was popular in the early 19th century with the Pitman around Long Benton, Northumberland.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Sharp (Country Dance Tunes), 1909; p. 61.

Recorded sources:

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