Annotation:Behind the Bush
BEHIND THE BUSH. American, March (?) (2/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. A march, perhaps a country dance, that appears in several American musicians' manuscript collections of the period of the War of Independence and the decade or two following. In appears in the copybooks of Oliver White (Ct., c. 1775), John Treat (Durham?, c. 1779-1802), Henry Beck (1786), Whittier Perkins (Mass., 1790) and Seth Johnson (Mass., c. 1805-40?). It also was entered into the early 19th century music manuscript collection of biography:John Buttery (1784-1854), a young fifer who joined the 34th Regiment in Lincoln, England, around the turn of the 19th century and who served for twenty years. Buttery retired from the army and later in life moved to Ontario, Canada, bringing his ms. with him.
The first strain is cognate with (but not identical) with that of "Behind the Bush in the Garden (7)", collected in south Ulster around the turn of the 20th century, however, the second strains differ.
