Annotation:My Skiff is on the Shore

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MY SKIFF IS ON THE SHORE. Scottish, Guaracha Waltz. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AA. The original may be the song “Come, Oh! Come With Me,” words by B. S. Barclay to an Italian melody, published by A. Piot in Philadelphia in 1842. As “Linden Waltz” the tune was first published by J. F. Atwill, New York in 1843 with the composer listed as Francis H. Brown; it also appears in several collections with that title. The minstrel parody version called “My Skiff is By the Shore” was sung by the Ethiopian Serenaders and published in 1848 in New York. The version in the John Neilson Music Book, from Scotland in the 1880's, has a second part in D, similar to Linden Waltz.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Kerr (Merry Melodies, vol. 3), c. 1880's; No. 305, p. 33. Williams (The John Neilson Music Book), 2013; p. 8.

Recorded sources: Tunes from the John Neilson Music Book, Voyager CD 380

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