Annotation:Kate and Davy
KATE AND DAVY. AKA "Cate & David." American, March or Contra Dance Tune (whole time). E Minor (Woburn): D Minor (Howe). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The march, as "Cate & David," is contained in the Woburn Fife Manuscript, a ms. collection inscribed with the the name Seth Johnson and "Woburn. April 20th day, 1807. I Bought this Book, 5:3." Entries were made between 1807 and as late as 1840. It was printed in Boston in 1867 as a tune in Elias Howe's 1000 Jigs and Reels as "Kate and Davy." The title (but not the tune) possibly derives from the second line of the song "Dainty Davie/Davy," a quite explicit version by poet Robert Burns published in his privately printed collection called The Merry Muses of Caledonia (1799). It begins:
A loving couple met one day,
Kate and Davy, dainty Davy,
'Twas in the merry month of May,
That Kitty met her Davy.
And as they did together play,
If you will credit what I say,
To pass the pleasant time away,
He slipped in little Davy.