Lyr Req: Paddy Will You Now

Subject: Paddy Will You Now lyrics
From:
Date: 08 Jun 99 - 03:01 AM

If anyone has the lyrics to Paddy Will You Now, I'd be very much appreciative if you could foreward them to:

[e-mail]

I desperately need them. Thank you so much.

Paddy Will You Now is of Irish origin, I'm pretty sure.

Send only to my email address.

Thank you.

From Brad.

Subject: Lyrics for Paddy Will you now
From:
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 04:09 AM

Hi, I am in desperate need for the words to a not so well known Irish tune called: Paddy will you now. If you can help, please send the to: [e-mail] or reply on this thread.

Thanks.

Brad.

Subject: RE: Lyrics for Paddy Will you now
From: Brakn
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 12:46 PM

Are you sure that's the title?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Paddy Will You Now
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 10 May 05 - 09:53 PM

I'm refreshing an old request.

Here's the entry from The Fiddler's Companion:

PADDY WILL YOU NOW? AKA and see "Tow Row Row." Irish, March (2/4 time). G Major. Standard. AABB. O'Neill (1922) says: "The above setting differs not materially from that in Clinton's 200 Irish Melodies for Flute, Dublin 1840. Under the same name a much simpler version appears in Haverty's 300 Irish Airs, New York 1858, having but the exceptional number of 13 bars altogether. To the editor this strain was known in boyhood days as 'Tow Row Row' both names being taken from the first line of the song Tow Row Row, Paddy, will you now, which song by the way cannot be found in any Irish collection at present available. 'Ta na la' or 'It is day' one of three tunes of that name in Stanford-Petrie Collection is obviously the same strain. The arrangement however is quite different; the melody and chorus together consisting of but 17 bars. To add to the diversity, we find that the arrangement of 'Paddy will you now' to which is set Gavan Duffy's poem 'Watch and Wait' in Ballads and Songs by the Writers of "The Nation" Dublin 1845 is limited to 14 bars." O'Neill (Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody), 1922; No. 51.

X:1
T:Paddy Will You Now
M:2/4
L:1/16
S:Capt. F. O'Neill
Z:Paul Kinder
R:Air
K:G
(3def|g2B2 B2AG|F2A2 A2BA|G2g2 gfga|b2g2 g2(3def|
g2B2 B2AG|F2A2 A2BA|B2g2 gfga|b2g2 g2:|
|:Bc|d2B2 d2ef|g2f2 e2d2|d2B2 d2ef|g2f2 e2d2|
eeee e2d2|g2B2 B2A2|GGGF G2A2|
B2G2 E2D2|GGGF G2B2|AAAB A2B2|B2g2 f2e2|
d2c2 B2A2|GGGG G2B2|AAAA A2B2|B2g2 f2a2|g4 g2:||

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Paddy Will You Now
From: masato sakurai
Date: 10 May 05 - 10:32 PM

Three broadside editions are at Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads.

paddy will you now [title]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Paddy Will You Now
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 10 May 05 - 11:21 PM

Note that there are two different songs there, though made on the same template. The first two broadsides are copies of a typical "stage Irish" thing of the early-ish 19th century. The third appears to be related in some fashion to Reilly's Daughter...

Subject: Lyr Add: SITTING ON THE BRIDGE (Thomas Hardy)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 12 May 05 - 08:08 AM

A poem by Thomas Hardy quotes the song. From "Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses," available at several places on the Internet, such as Project Gutenberg:

SITTING ON THE BRIDGE
(Echo of an old song)

   Sitting on the bridge
   Past the barracks, town and ridge,
At once the spirit seized us
To sing a song that pleased us -
As "The Fifth" were much in rumour;
It was "Whilst I'm in the humour,
   Take me, Paddy, will you now?"
   And a lancer soon drew nigh,
   And his Royal Irish eye
   Said, "Willing, faith, am I,
O, to take you anyhow, dears,
   To take you anyhow."

   But, lo!--dad walking by,
   Cried, "What, you lightheels! Fie!
   Is this the way you roam
   And mock the sunset gleam?"
   And he marched us straightway home,
Though we said, "We are only, daddy,
Singing, 'Will you take me, Paddy?'"
--Well, we never saw from then
   If we sang there anywhen,
   The soldier dear again,
Except at night in dream-time,
   Except at night in dream.

Perhaps that soldier's fighting
   In a land that's far away,
Or he may be idly plighting
   Some foreign hussy gay;
Or perhaps his bones are whiting
   In the wind to their decay! . . .
   Ah!--does he mind him how
   The girls he saw that day
On the bridge, were sitting singing
At the time of curfew-ringing,
"Take me, Paddy; will you now, dear?
   Paddy, will you now?"

Subject: Bodleian ballads
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Apr 13 - 02:56 PM

[e-mail]
Has anyone transcribed the Bodleian Library ballad sheets of "Paddy, will you now?" I printed them but find them almost unreadable.

Subject: Lyr Add: PADDY WILL YOU NOW (from Bodleian)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 14 Apr 13 - 09:24 PM

From the Bodleian broadside collection, Harding B 11(4124)*:


PADDY WILL YOU NOW

Come list to me both young and old
While I tell you of a jolly spree,
Concerning of one Judy Cann
Who lives in St. Giles' Rookery.
She bawled aloud in accents strong
"I have too long single tarried, I vow.
My age last Sunday was twenty-one,
And I am determined for to have it now."

CHORUS: Tow, row, row; Paddy, will you now
Take me now [while]* I am in the humour?

She declared a husband she would have.
Matrimonial pleasures she would feel.
To Denny Connor she went straightway.
Her mind to him she did reveal.
"Arrah, Paddy, honey," she then did say,
"I dearly love you; that you know."
When Paddy bawled, "Arrah, Judy dear,
Don't I love your—
    Tow, row, &c.

Then Paddy jumped about for joy,
And with Judy they went hand in hand,
Invited all the Irish boys
To come to their wedding so grand.
There was Paddy [Biddy]* Flynn and Patrick Gyn,
Mister Donovan and his brother Joe.
All swore they'd go with Mister Donough
To the wedding of Paddy—
    Tow, row, &c.

The day arrived; they were all alive
When they all flew like bogtrotters wild
With Denny Connor, one after another,
To the church of famed St. Giles.
The clergyman soon joined their hands,
When to their homes they then did go.
Paddy swore he would enjoy that night
Judy and her—
    Tow, row, &c.

To dinner then they all sit down
And swore that nothing should them bilk.
There was poraties [sic], cabbage, and pigs' heads
With nineteen gallons of buttermilk.
Dinner being done, the lush began,
When the fiddler began to scratch his brow [scrape his bow?],
And Judy so drunk fell over a trunk
And nearly showed her—
    Tow, row, &c.

The lush went round; they swigh'd [sic] it down,
And Donough tumbled over the cat,
And Biddy Flynn's little spalpeen
Dirted in Denny Connor's hat.
The fiddler began to scrape away
While some to the back yard did go.
Snoring on the floor some then did lay,
While Judy bawled out—
    Tow, row, &c.

The morning after caused much laughter
To see poor Connor sprawling on the floor,
But where Judy laid, she with her head
Split open the cupboard door,
But in less than nine months' time
Her belly it began to grow,
And Connor had to crown his joys
With two little darlings—
    Tow, row, &c.


[* I compared this version with Firth b.25(481), and where the latter had a reasonable alternative wording, I have inserted it in brackets.

[I find this a bit confusing. If the bridegroom's name is Denny, why does Judy call him Paddy? I think if I were going to sing this song, I would change "Denny" to "Paddy."]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Paddy Will You Now
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Apr 13 - 09:38 PM

Harding B 14 (92), dated to 1839. Cf. "Riley's Daughter":

                 PADDY WILL YOU NOW.
        
Once I was a roving blade,
   And often with girls went a cruizing,
My landlady was kind to me,
   But my landlord he was always a busing, [sic]                                  Tow, row, row, Paddy will you now
Take me while I'm in the humour that's just now.

My landlord he went out one day,
   And left me at his house a calling,
The girls they all come tumbling in,
   Like bees that's in summer swarming,

Now there was one amongst the rest,
   Her name was Eliza Kenwick,
I put my arm around her waist,
   And placed my hand on her band of music,

As I was going up the stairs,
   I saw this fair maid's door [l]ie open,
Says I my love, tis just my trade,
   To stop all doors that I find open,

Then quickly I laid her on the bed,
   And gently put my right leg over,
The deuce of a word this fair maid said,
   But wriggled herself till the job was over.

To my surprise I heard a noise,
   Who should it be but her cross old mother,
She caught me by her daughter's side,
   And arrah blood an ound you've kilt my daughter.

Quick I leaped off the bed,
   And seized the old girl by the hind quarter
Then rammed her up against the bed
   And served her as I served the daughter.

As I was going down the stairs,
   The cross old fool come tumbling after,
And at every step she took she cries,
   Their goes the man that kiss'd my daughter. [sic]

As I was passing through the door,
   Who should I meet but the sly old father,
With a brace of pistols in his hands,
   To shoot the man who'd kiss'd his daughter.                           

To put an end to this gay sport,
   I soused his head in a pail of water,
And rammed his pistols down his throat
   And left him to cure his wife and daughter.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Paddy Will You Now
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Mar 18 - 08:29 PM

The tune identified as "One Eye'd Riley" in Septimus Winner's "Excelsior Collection for the Flute" (N.Y., 1864), p.36, is (unsurprisingly) an unmistakable variant of "Paddy Will You Now?" in P.M. Haverty's "One Hundred Irish Airs," III (N .Y., 1859), p.142.

Winner's is the earliest printing I have found of a tune with this title. Both his and Haverty's are reminiscent of the "Riley" tune used by T.S. Eliot in his 1949 play "The Cocktail Party."

Several sources mention "One-Eyed Riley" as a marching tune in America beginning in the 1850s, but no one in the 19th century offered any lyrics to accompany it.

The modern song unquestionably descends from "Paddy, Will You Now?"

In Eliot's version, by the way, Riley is the narrator, not the father.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Paddy Will You Now
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Mar 18 - 08:41 PM

The earliest version is "The Rover" (ca1790) in John Holloway & Joan Black, "Later English Broadside Ballads" (London, 1975), pp. 235-236.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Paddy Will You Now
From: GUEST,Conor Ward
Date: 19 Nov 24 - 08:34 AM

could you send a copy of "The Rover"?