Annotation:Sick Tune (The)

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SICK TUNE, THE. AKA and see "Sick Sick" "Captain Car." English, Country Dance Tune (4/4 time). F Major/D Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The melody is from the Cittharn School (1597), while the lyrics are to be found in Ritson's Ancient Songs. Francis Child gives several versions of the poem under the title "Captain Care." The song tells of the massacre of a Lady and her household of 37 persons at the hands of that Captain Care, who set fire to her manor:

It befell at Martinmass when weather waxed cold,
Captain Care said to his men, "We must go take a holde."
Sick, sick and too, too sick, and sick and like to die,
The sickest night that ever I abode, God Lord have mercy on me!

Shakespeare makes reference to the tune in Much Ado About Nothing (act III, scene 5) when Hero says, "Why, how now! do you speak in the sick tune?" to which Beatrice answers, "I am out af all other tune, methinks."

Additional notes

Source for notated version: -

Printed sources : - Kines (Songs From Shakespeare's Plays and Popular Songs of Shakespeare's Time), 1964; pp. 42 43. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 16.

Recorded sources: -

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