Annotation:I Cannot Win at Her for Her Big Belly

Back to I Cannot Win at Her for Her Big Belly

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I CANNOT WIN AT HER FOR HER BIG BELLY. Scottish, Air or Jig (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. The meldoy was first printed by London publisher Henry Playford in his Collection of Original Scotch-Tunes (1700, p. 60). It also appears in Dublin publishers John & William Neal’s Scotch Tunes (c. 1724), and in the MacFarlan Manuscript (1740, part II, No. 148), in 'A' Mixolydian. Jack Campin finds a cognate in the Henry Atkinson manuscript (c. 1694) under the title "Ye deal gae with hir hir tayle flyes up) [1], although Atkinson's tune is rather garbled rhythmically in the transcription. James Oswald printed it twice in his mid-18th century collections, as "I cannot win at her" and "Hit Her on the Bum." The latter version was printed in Edinburgh at the end of the century by the Gows with the modified title "Hit Her on the Thumb". Campin finds further 19th century derivatives in the Scottish "We're No' Very Fu' But We're Geyly Yet" and the song version called "Bide Ye Yet (3)" where it finally achieves respectability from a set of words.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Oswald (Caledonian Pocket Companion, Book V), 1760; p. 6.

Recorded sources:

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