Origins: All around my hat (Steeleye Span)

Subject: Origins: All around my hat (Steeleye Span)
From: Sabine
Date: 25 Jan 03 - 03:10 AM

Hi all,

I received an email. Someone complaining that I put the song in the wrong category. I said it comes from Britain, he says it comes from Ireland.

So I had a look at this threat here

Maybe my English is too low to understand but I couldn't find out whether this song is English or Irish.

Could anyone help me with this question, please?

Thanks in advance

Sabine


CantaLibre

Subject: RE: Origins: All around my hat (Steeleye Span)
From: Fiolar
Date: 25 Jan 03 - 05:26 AM

Sabine: As far as I am aware the Steeleye Span song is based on "The Tri-Coloured Ribbon" which was written by Peadar Kearney who also wrote among other items the Irish National Anthem (The Soldiers' Song). Hope that helps.

Subject: RE: Origins: All around my hat (Steeleye Span)
From: masato sakurai
Date: 25 Jan 03 - 06:14 AM

See this thread: Origins? All around my hat.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Origins: All around my hat (Steeleye Span)
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 25 Jan 03 - 10:22 AM

The verse used by Steeleye Span is from a completely different song 'Let him go , Farewell He', which has a very similar tune to All around my Hat and is three verses and no chorus. (Steeleye are notorious for messing about with songs - some of the work well for me, others I am not convinced by).
All around My hat as I know it is a Broken Token song about a soldier (or sailor - i forget) going off to war for a Year and a Day. None of the versions in the Digitrad are the version I know.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Origins: All around my hat (Steeleye Span)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 25 Jan 03 - 10:50 AM

Well; technically you do have it in the wrong category insofar as you have used the Steeleye Span text, which is a modern collation and therefore not traditional; though the songs from which they made it were traditional, and English, not Irish; so your correspondent is wrong about that.

The tune is another matter, as is so often the case, and turns up in a number of variant forms attached to other songs as well. I wouldn't like to guess what country might have earliest title to the melody, but there doesn't seem any particular reason to think that that would be Ireland, though it has certainly been found there as well as in England.

As Masato says, the song was discussed in considerable detail in the thread he has linked to. I think that I identified the sources of the examples in the DT there, too.

Subject: RE: Origins: All around my hat (Steeleye Span)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 25 Aug 03 - 02:13 AM

There are MIDI files at the bottom of the pages for the Digital Tradition songs you'll see in the links at the top of this thread. You can download the MIDI by right-clicking the "Click to Play" link at the end of the song. I'm going to close this thread and ask that any further discussion be conducted in the other "origins" thread (or wherever it's appropriate).
-Joe Offer-