Annotation:Widow Machree

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WIDOW MACHREE. AKA and see "My Ain Kind Dearie (2)," "Sweet Innisfallen." Irish, Jig. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Boston publisher Elias Howe printe the air, a +6/8 time variation of “My Ain Kind Dearie” (see Stanford/Petrie’s No. 641), to a popular Mid-19th century song by Dublin-born Samuel Lover (1797-1868), a composer, novelist, painter and poet (not to mention that he was the grandfather of composer Victor Herbert). Lover is oft-quoted for one line in the song: “Sure the shovel and tongs, to each other belongs.” Lover's words begin:

Widow Machree, it’s no wonder you frown,
Och hone! Widow Machree.
Faith, it ruins your looks, that same dirty black gown,
Och hone! Widow Machree.
How alter’d your air,
With that close cap you wear—
’T is destroying your hair
Which should be flowing free;
Be no longer a churl
Of its black silken curl,
Och hone! Widow Machree!

See also “Sweet Innisfallen.”

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Cole (1000 Fiddle Tunes), 1940; p. 59. Ryan’s Mammoth Collection, 1883; p. 89. White’s Unique Collection, 1896; No. 11, p. 2.

Recorded sources:

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