Annotation:Tight Little Island (The)
X:1 T:Tight Little Island, The M:6/8 L:1/8 K:D A/G/ | F>FF FGA | B>BB Bcd | A>AA AGF | A3 E2 A/G/ | F>FF FGA |B>BB Bcd | A>AA AGF | E3D2 :| |: D | d2d cBA | B3A2A | d2d cBA | B3A2G | F>FF FGA | B>BB Bcd | A>BA AGF | E3D2 :|
TIGHT LITTLE ISLAND, THE. English, Air and Jig (6/8 time). D Major (Raven): G Major (Wade): F Major (Knowles). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (Knowles, Raven): AA'B (Wade). The tune was adapted from "The Island", a humorous song written about 1798 by Thomas Dibdin (1771-1841) and sung by a singer named Davies at Sadler’s Wells in that year. Thomas was the illegitimate son of British songwriter, actor, writer, and actor Charles_Dibdin. The song was written during the perceived threat of Napoleonic invasion. Kidson, in Groves, identifies it as a version of "The Rogue's March. " Dibdin's song begins:
Daddy Neptune one day to Freedom did say,
"If ever I live upon dry land,
The spot I should hit on would be little Britain."
Says Freedom, "Why that's my own Island."
Oh! what a snug little Island,
A right little, tight little Island!
All the globe round, none can be found
So happy as this little Island.
Julius Caesar, the Roman, who yielded to no man,
Came by water, he couldn't come by dry land;
And Dane, Pict and Saxon, their homes turn'd their backs on,
And all for the sake of our Island,
Oh, what a snug little Island,
They'd all have a touch at the Island;
Some were shot dead - some of them fled,
And some stay'd to live in the Island.
"Tight Little Island" can be found in the 1850 music manuscript collections of shoemaker and fiddler William Winter (1774-1861, West Bagborough, Somerset, southwest England), set in the key of 'A' major, and of Hereford musician Thomas Hampton (c. 1860's).
The melody is occasionally heard in North West (England) morris dance repertory, "collected and published since the revival in 1905" by Mary Neal.
