Annotation:Drunken Sailor (1)
Tune properties and standard notation
DRUNKEN SAILOR [1], THE. English, Country Dance Tune (2/4 time); American, Dance Tune. USA, souterwestern Pa. D Major (Raven): G Major (Ford, Sweet). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (O'Flannagan): AABB (Ford, Raven): AABBCC (Sweet). The tune has been used for numerous songs, play-party tunes, and ditties, including "Ten Little Indians" and "The Monkey's Wedding." Bayard (1981) thinks that the tune is a simplified version of the Irish hornpipe called "Groves (The)" (O'Neill's Music of Ireland, Nos. 1598 & 1703), which in turn appears to based on a "simple, fundamental strain" of the Scottish "Johnnie Cope." Ralph Sweet, in his collection for the fife, tacks on as a third part to the usual two parts of the tune the first part of the nautical melody known as "Earl-ie in the Morning." Fuld, in The Book of World Famous Music, traces the tune to manuscript collections of around 1800 and in print to the mid-1820's.
Source for notated version: George Strosnider (elderly fidder from Greene County, Pa., 1930's), Thomas Patterson (Elizabeth, Pa., 1930's), Frank King (Westmoreland County, Pa., 1960).
Printed sources: Bayard (Dance to the Fiddle), 1981; No. 223, pp. 179-180. Ford (Traditional Music in America), 1940; pg. 74. Joyce (Old Irish Folk Music and Songs), 1909; No. 201. Kennedy (Fiddlers Tune Book), vol. 2, 1954; p. 22. O'Flannagan (Hibernia Collection), 1860; p. 14. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 144. Sweet (Fifer's Delight), 1964/1981; p. 52. White's Excelsior Collection, 1898; p. 78.
Recorded sources: Edison 51548 (78 RPM), 1923, John Baltzell (appears as 1st tune of "Drunken Sailor Medley" {Baltzell was a native of Mt. Vernon, Ohio, as was minstrel Dan Emmett (d. 1904). Emmett returned to the town in 1888, poor, and later taught Baltzell to play the fiddle}.