G'day Cool Beans,

The collecting of dance tunes (certainly here in Australia) is littered with mnemonic names, which are used to lock in the rhythm of each tune. Sometimes these are existing lyrics to songs that share the tune - so that when, many years back, the Bush Music Club was putting out some "standard" tune sets we all had a mental blank when faced with Cock of the North - and that tune went out under the name Aunty Mary ... for the various ditties about her that were remembered by the compilers!

Some of those collected in the field raise the odd eyebrow - like the many variants of "The Black Cat Piddled in the White Cat's Eye" ... or "God Bless You and Bugger me!". Still, I guess it's better than "Mick Pilley's Fifteenth Schottische"!

Regards,

Bob