Annotation:Strop the Razor (1)
X:1 T:Strop the Razor (1) T:1st Setting M:6/8 L:1/8 B:O'Neill's Music of Ireland. 1850 Melodies, 1903, p. 206, no. 1092 N:1st repeat mark added. Z:François-Emmanuel de Wasseige K:G D|:DGG BAG|AFD FDC|DGG BAG|Add cAG| DGG BAG|AFD F2G|FED F2G|Add cAG:| |:DGG G2A|DFF F2G|DGG GFG|Add cAG| DGG G2A|DFF F2G|FED F2G|Add cAG:|]
STROP THE RAZOR [1] (Cuir faobar air an sgian-bearrta). Irish, Double Jig (6/8 time). G Major (Cole, O'Neill, Robbins, White): B Flat Major (Howe, Joyce). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (most versions): AABBCC (Kennedy). See also similar melodies: "Heart of My Kitty Still Warms to Me," "Kitty's Rambles," "Linehan's Rambles," "Murray's Maggot," "Petticoat Loose (2)," "Young Ettie Lee." The title appears in a list of tunes in his repertoire brought by Philip Goodman, the last professional and traditional piper in Farney, Louth, to the Feis Ceoil in Belfast in 1898 (Breathnach, 1997). P.W. Joyce also transcribed his setting from a piper, James Buckley, who probably played a flat set of pipes, resulting in the unusual key of B flat in Joyce's transcription (as Joyce probably used a standard tuning fork or tuning pipe)[1]
Compare also the first strain of "Stop the Razor [1]" with the first strains of O'Neill's "Barefoot Boy (The)" and Goodman/Petrie's "Buachaillín Óg (1)."