Take 6 Transcription Programme: The Butterworth Archive, MS 7e
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Editors' note: Many of the MSS in this group are deficient in information, which has therefore been supplemented with the results of Katie Howson's research, which is hereby acknowledged with out grateful thanks. The individual pieces contain the appropriate on-line references.
GB/7e/1 Bonny Blue Handkerchief
GB/7e/2 General Wolfe
Notes on GB/7e/2 The singer, "Jack Dade, Pulham Union," has also given us the lyrics for this version of General Wolfe. See the image file for GB/4/56 posted at the EFDSS's VWML website.
GB/7e/3 Trot Away
GB/7e/4 Ratcatcher's Daughter
GB/7e/5 Hearts of Oak
GB/7e/6 Harvest Song
GB/7e/7 Molecatcher
GB/7e/8 Rose of Britain's Isle
GB/7e/9 John Reilly
GB/7e/10 Coming Down to Manchester
GB/7e/11 Boy and Highwayman
GB/7e/12 Dolly Vardon Style
Notes on GB/7e/11 The Dolly Varden style refers to a fashionable female clothing style, and specifically to ladies' hats. There are
at least 2 broadsides, one called 'The Dolly Varden Hats' and the other 'The Dolly Varden Hat.' The latter was printed by Glasgow Poet's Box
and can be dated at 1873. The first line is 'Come, dear, don't fear, try and cut a shine' and it goes to the much used tune of 'The Knickerbocker
Line,' of which this tune appears to be a variant. 'The Knickerbocker Line' tune gave rise to a whole series of songs, many of which, such as
'The Cruise of the Bigler' and 'The Dogger Bank,' went into oral tradition; there are also similarities with the tune used by Ewan McColl for his
"Second Front Song." The chorus of the Glasgow Poet's Box version contains the words: 'Watch her, twig her, she's a proper jubaju.' A version with
variations is posted at the National Library of Scotland:[1]
Here is the first verse and chorus, which fit the tune of GB/7e/11 well:
THE DOLLY VARDEN HATS.
COME, dear, don't fear, try and cut a shine,
And wear a hat and feathers in the fashionable line.
Lovers you'll have plenty, of that you may depend,
If you wear the Dolly Varden hat, and do the Grecian Bend.
(Chorus.)
Come, dear, don't fear, have your ringlets curled,
If you're out of fashion, you had better leave the world,
Your sweet and pretty faces will wear a winning smile,
If you get a hat and feather in the Dolly Varden style.
GB/7e/13 Horse Race
GB/7e/14 Jockey
GB/7e/15 [As Robin Was Driving His Wagon Along]
Notes on GB/7e/15 This is difficult to decipher. Bar 2 is ambiguous. It looks like Butterworth originally wrote three crotchets
G,E,E and then decided that he had left out an initial crotchet, B (hence the cramped appearance in the MS). If this is the case,
then the bar would be in 4/4 time. Butterworth also notes a variation (in fainter writing) in which the first two crotchets, B and G,
are quavers, thus (and as transcribed here) restoring the 3/4 time. At bar 15 there is another variant: A or E between the two G crotchets.
At bar 18, the fermata is clearly, if strangely, placed over the rest. The lyrics are incomplete and garbled.
GB/7e/16 Sowing Machine
Notes on GB/7e/16 The machine in the title is probably for "sewing" and not "sowing." There is no known song about a 'sowing machine,' which would most likely
have been referred to as a 'seed drill.' Broadside songs entitled "Sewing Machine" were printed by Glasgow Poet's Box, Disley of London and Pearson of Manchester. There
is also a version in Healy's Old Irish Street Ballads, Vol 1. p. 261, which fits the tune well. Here is a sample verse:
I chanced to fall in one day with a bewitching maid
Her beauty put all other girls entirely in the shade
With her rosy cheeks and eyes so black she looked just like a queen.
From 9 till 6 just like a brick she works a sewing machine.
(Chorus)
She stole away my heart and I wish I'd never seen,
The female fair with curly hair that worked the sewing machine.
GB/7e/18 Team-Boy
GB/7e/19 Barley Mow
GB/7e/20 Old King Cole
GB/7e/21 Keys of Heaven