Take 6 Transcription Programme: The Butterworth Archive, MS 7e
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GB/7e/1 Bonny Blue Handkerchief
GB/7e/2 General Wolfe
Notes on GB/7e/2 The singer, "Jack Dade, Puham 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
Notes on GB/7e/3 The informant, "Old Tubbs" is not clearly indicated in the MS but has been deduced from the MS evidence. He is not to be confused with "Young Tubbs." (See GB/7e/20.)
GB/7e/4 Ratcatcher's Daughter
Notes on GB/7e/4 A degree of editorial interpretation was necessary to reconstruct this tune from the rather sketchy version in the MS. From the layout of the
MS it seems likely that this song, like GB/7e/3 and GB/7e/5, was from "Old Tubbs."
GB/7e/5 Hearts of Oak
Notes on GB/7e/5 The words are incomplete and garbled. From the layout of the MS it seems likely that this song, like GB/7e/3 and GB/7e/4, was from "Old Tubbs."
GB/7e/6 Harvest Song
GB/7e/7 Molecatcher
GB/7e/8 Rose of Britain's Isle
Notes on GB/7e/8 The MS is unclear, but in the transcription it is assumed that the singer is the same as for the previous song.
GB/7e/9 John Reilly
Notes on GB/7e/9 The significance of the term "twice" in the MS is unclear; here it is taken to indicate a repeat of the second
phrase to produce a standard musical ABBA pattern.
GB/7e/10 Coming Down to Manchester
GB/7e/11 Boy and Highwayman
Notes on GB/7e/11 Both the music and the words are garbled.
GB/7e/12 Dolly Vardon 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
abc notation
X:16
T:GB/7e/16 Sowing Machine
C:Woodcock Jnr., Scole, XII. 11
L:1/8
M:6/8
I:linebreak $
K:GDor
A | B2 c A2 B | G2 F G2 A | B2 c A2 B | G3- G2 F | G2 A B2 c | d2 d d2 c |$ d2 g g2 f | d3- d2 A |
d2 d d2 d | g3 f2 d | c2 c cde | f3 e2 f | d2 c A2 B |$ c2 A G2 G | d2 d cBA | G3- G2 ||
"^Chorus" d | d2 d d2 d | g2 g g2 c | c2 c cde |$ f3 e2 f | d2 c A2 B | c2 A G2 G | d2 d cBA |
G3- G2 |]
GB/7e/18
Notes on GB/7e/16 The machine in the title is probably for "sewing" and not "sowing." 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.
She stole away my heart and I wish I'd never seen,
The female fair with curly hair that worked the sewing machine.