oliver wrote:billh wrote:Frieze Britches == I Buried My Wife...
same tune. Some people use the second name for the Willy C version but in the Mitchell book it's labelled Frieze Britches anyway (all 3? versions)
I agree it's known as two different versions of the same tune but The Frieze britches often refers to the 5-part jig whereas I buried my wife has only two parts, plus the notes are slightly different, even if both melodies are strongly related to each other. I think one must be derived from the other. Which is the first in your opinion ?
Interesting speculations (above, and L42B's) but I don't quite think they fit. I don't think there's any grounds for referring to them as different tunes.
The tune also appears in a two-part version in
O'Farrell's Pocket Companion under the name 'The Soup Of Good Drink' - it's very similar to the Willy Clancy two-part version, and authority Aloys Fleischmann identifies this as the same tune as I Buried My Wife and Frieze Britches, in
Sources of Irish Traditional Music. (There's another tune by almost the same name - 'The Sup of Good Drink', also a single jig, in John Murphy's 1809 "Collection of Irish Airs and Jiggs with Variations", but it's not obviously related).
In
O'Neills 1850 both names (Frieze Britches and I Buried My Wife And Danced On Her Grave) are given for the same transcription, which has six parts.
Pat Mitchell lists no less than
four Willy Clancy versions of the tune - including a two part and what appears to be a
10 part transcription - but labels all of them "The Frieze Britches", whereas on the Clancy album the "Buried My Wife.." name is used (for the five part version, if I recall correctly).
As for the 'Buried My Wife...' title giving offense, I've heard one explanation that the dance over a grave was a traditional act which a partner might perform. I don't know anything about that.
Bill
(do youse guys never check these speculations of yours in books? I know you might not have access to Fleischmann, but surely you have O'Neill's...)
