Annotation:Jack at Greenwich

Back to Jack at Greenwich

---

JACK AT GREENWICH. English, Air (whole time). A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. The song "Jack at Greenwich" was written by Charles Dibdin (), popular songwriter renowned for his sea songs. The first stanza goes:

We tars are all for fun and glee,--
A hornpipe was my notion;
Time was I'd dance with any he
That sails the salt sea ocean:
I'd tip the roll, the slide, the reel,
Back, forward, in the middle;
And roast the pig, and toe and heel,
All going with the fiddle.
But one day told a shot to ram,
To chase for foe advancing,
A splinter queer'd my larboard gam,
And, damme! spoil'd my dancing.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Dibdin & Hogarth (The Songs of Charles Dibdin: Chronologically Arranged), 1848; pp. 252-254. Manson (Hamilton’s Universal Tune Book, vol. 2), 1846; p. 15.

Recorded sources:

---