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Annotation:Cold and Raw

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Sheet Music for "Cold and Raw"Cold and RawJig= 110Be merry, my friends, and list a while Unto a merry jestIt may from you produce a smile When you heare it exprestOf a young man lately married Which was a boone goode fellowThis song in's head he alwaies carried When drink made him mellowI cannot go home, nor will I go home It's long of the oyle of BarlyI'le tarry all night for my delight And go home in the morning early--Humour,Wit and Satire (1647)History: Many lyrics were set to the tune, all having in common the metaphoricalthemes of strong ale, and of "selling barley", the feminine equivalentof "sowing wild oats"In 1688 a "new Scotch song" set to the tuneappear. Written by D'Urfey, it began "Cold and raw the North didblow".



COLD AND RAW. AKA - "Cold and Rough." AKA and see "Stingo," "Oil of Barley," "Juice of Barley (1)," "Lull Me Beyond Thee," "Farmer's Daughter (2)," "Up in the Morning Early (1)." English, Scottish, Irish; Country Dance and song tune. The air was published by Playford in his English Dancing Master (1651) under the title "Stingo, or Oyle of Barley," and it carried that title through all editions until 1690, when the name is changed to "Cold and Raw." The Dancing Master kept the latter until the last, 1728, edition. Kidson (Groves) thinks the "Stingo" title may have originated with a ballad called "A Cup of Old Stingo" printed in Merry Drollery Complete. The "Cold and Raw" title comes from D'Urfy and is the beginning of a song called "The Farmer's Daughter." The tune was immensely popular in both England and Italy [1].

As with many popular ballad tunes, many songs were set to it, leading to a variety of titles. In different editions of D'Urfy's Pills to Purge Melancholy it appears as the aforementioned "The Farmer's Daughter," a song whose first appearance was in D'Urfy's Comes Amores (1688). John Gay printed the tune under his song title "If any wench Venus's girdel wears," from The Beggar's Opera (1729). Emmerson {1971} claims Gay's song is a parody of the 'Scottish' song "Cold and Raw," however, Sharp (1907) declines to believe the Beggar's Opera version is a parody, and points out that Gay was not a musician but rather employed the services of a German, Pepusch, by name, to note down and arrange the airs which Gay sang to him. "It needs but a cursory examination of this opera to see that the airs are anything but faithful transcriptions of genuine peasant-tunes...'Cold and Raw' is converted to a minor tune with a minor 6th and a sharpened leading tone..." Scottish versions are usually called "Cold and Raw," but it can also be found as "Up in the Morning Early." Grattan Flood (1906) characteristically (miss-)identifies the melody as an Irish bagpipe tune of the mid-17th century, though Kidson (1922) and most writers ascribe Anglo-Scottish origins.

The English composer Henry Purcell used the tune as a bass part for a Royal Birthday Ode in 1692. Kidson refers to the "well-known" anecdote related by Sir John Hawkins who recalled that Queen Mary asked Mrs. Arabella Hunt, in composer Purcell's presence, if she could not sing "Cold and Raw," one of her favorite melodies. This was seen (by Hawkins) as an affront to Purcell and an indication that the Queen was tired of Purcell's compositions. His response was to use the tune in her next, 1692, birthday ode.

One of the "lost tunes" from William Vickers 1780 Northumbrian dance tune manuscript is called "Cauld and Raw the Wind Doth Blaw," and is presumably this tune (see note for "Annotation:Up in the Morning Early"). See also the somewhat more elaborate variants of "Cold and Raw" under the titles "Up in the Morning Early (3)" (from William Winter) and "Rhuthr-gyrch Captain Gwyn ("Captain Gwynn's Attack March", from Nicholas Bennett).


Additional notes



Printed sources : - John Walsh (Complete Country Dancing-Master, Volume the Fourth), London, 1740; No. 153. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 50 ("Cold and Raw"), p. 37 ("Stingo").

Recorded sources : - Flying Fish FF-407, Robin Williamson - "Winter's Turning" (1986).




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  1. Margaret Dean-Smith and E.J. Nicol, "The Dancing Master: 1651-1728", Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, vol. 4, No. 3, Dec., 1943, p. 137.
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