Annotation:Three Merry Men of Kent
{{#seo:
|type=article
|author=https://www.tunearch.org/wiki/User:Andrew
|published_time=2020-12-22
|description=The Internet Archive of traditional Irish, Scottish, British and North American tunes with annotations and free sheet music in pdf
|keywords=fiddle tune finder, find recordings, irish traditional music, tune name finder, tunes in abc format, english country dance, old-time music
|image=TUC-160x120.png
|image_alt=tune name finder
}}
__NOABC__
{{#lst:Three Merry Men of Kent|abc}}
{{safesubst:#invoke:string|rep|
|1}}
THREE MERRY MEN OF KENT. English, Air (4/4 time). G Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. "Three Merry Men of Kent" is the indicated tune for a song [Roud 615] in the ballad opera The Jovial Crew (1731), that begins:
He that will not merry, merry be,
With a generous bowl and toast;
May he in Bridewell be shut up,
And fast bound to a post.
Let him be merry, merry, merry there,
And we will be merry, merry, merry here;
For who can know where we may go,
To be merry another year, Brave boys,
To be merry another year.
However, the original words to "Merry Men of Kent" were thought to be lost by Chappell, but have since been traced to a ballad called "The Merry Fellows; or, He that will not Merry, Merry Be." The song was not common in tradition, but Roud gave one example collected from a folksinger printed in Alfred-Williams' Folk-Songs of the Upper Thames (1923) under the title "Merry, Merry be" or "Now we've met let's Merry Merry be." It was collected from one William Mills in South Cerney, between 1913 and 1916. The text of that ballad is similar to a version of the old song printed in Dixon's Songs of the Peasantry of England (p. 239).
{{safesubst:#invoke:string|rep|
|1}}
<vote type=1 />
__NOTITLE__