Annotation:Bow Wow Wow

Back to Bow Wow Wow

---

BOW WOW WOW. AKA and see "Barking Barber (The)." English, Air (2/4 time). G Mixolydian. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. The song was sung by Mr. John Edwin (the elder) in John O'Keeffe's play first published as Patrick in Prussia; or, love in a camp, staged at Covent Garden in February, 1786. The song with music was printed in Walker's Hibernian Magazine (1786).

I'll sing you a song faith I'm singing of it now here,
I don't mean to 'front either small or big "Bow Wow Wow" here;
The subject I've chosen, it is the Canine race,
To prove, like us "Two-legg'd Dogs", they are a very fine race,
"Bow, wow, wow", Fal-lal-de, id-dy, id-dy, "Bow, wow, wow."

The title (as "Bow Wow") appears in Henry Robson's list of popular Northumbrian song and dance tunes, which he published c. 1800. See also Annotation:Gumbo Chaff, an American minstrel song that may have been based on "Bow Wow Wow."

The name or word 'bow-wow' in popular culture predates the 1786 song, however. At Dublin's Smock Alley on May 19, 1732, a short-lived piece in ballad opera form called Johnny Bow-wow; or, The Wicked Gravedigger was performed. It was based on a real individual, whose name is lost to history, who had been jailed for stealing corpses out of graveyards for medical students' use. He suffered transportation a few weeks later for his entrepreneurial venture.

Printed source: Howe (1000 Jigs and Reels), c. 1867; p. 161. Manson (Hamilton's Universal Tune Book, vol. 2), 1846; p. 71.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources:

Recorded sources:

---