Hi Jim,

I know we have discussed this before, but I still don't feel that your claim of these tunes being COMPLETELY different is valid to my ear as a musician.

This tune, sung here by Alma Gluck,around 1918, and the same as the one I transcribed to midi from the 1821 Scottish Minstrel linked above, sound like the clear parent of what McPeake played, fortunately this recording of the McPeake family in 1960 was preserved.

If we are having a discussion about whether taking a 20 note phrase and changing 3 of them makes it a new 'copyrightable' tune, then I can't comment as I'm not a copyright lawyer. However, I did follow the case between Men at Work and the owners of the 'Kookaburra Sings' song with interest, and precedent would suggest that a small change like this is not enough when the representatives of both parties have good lawyers.

I know what it is like when you hear a tune at a session and try and recall it from memory a few days later. The changes between the two tunes are exactly the types of note swaps and phrasing modification that naturally occur with fallible human memory. There may have been 20-30 years between when Francis Snr. heard this song at an opera and when he tried to recall it, and in fact he might have first heard it from 2-3 other people who heard it at the opera any time back to 1820. In any case, he can't be credited with 'writing' it, a fact that he admitted himself on a recording.

If I get board I might transcribe both tunes note for note and count the notes that are different.

I'm not trying to open old wounds here, I just like to get to the bottom of things,

Cheers,
Daniel,