Provenance of 'Mallow Fling'?

Subject: Provenance of 'Mallow Fling'?
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 01 Aug 03 - 03:53 AM

I suddenly remembered this tune last night: quite jolly; used to sing a rather insipid and not-very-trad-sounding set of words to it at school in the 50s; also "Liverpool Barrow-boy" (Spinners et al.). Only 14 hits on Google, and all from school singing/music lessons! One gives it as 18th century, several as Irish and one as English/Irish.

Anyone really know where it comes from?

I thought it might go well as a set with the tune of "Brighton Camp"; is it done to mix English and Irish tunes (if it is Irish)?

Steve

Subject: RE: Provenance of 'Mallow Fling'?
From: Snuffy
Date: 01 Aug 03 - 08:39 AM

Also known as "The Rakes of Mallow", it is often coupled with the Winster Gallop in England

Subject: RE: Provenance of 'Mallow Fling'?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Aug 03 - 09:07 AM

Alfred Moffat and Frank Kidson (Irish Minstrelsy, 1897, p.21) had this to say:

"As Rakes of Mallow, this air occurs in Burk Thumoth's Twelve English and twelve Irish airs, London, circa 1745-50, and as The Rakes of London in Johnson's Two Hundred Country Dances, vol. vi., London, 1751. In the latter publisher's Compleat Tutor for the Guittar, circa 1755, it is styled Rakes of Marlow, and in Aird's Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. ii., Glasgow, 1782, The Rakes of Mall. Arnold has made good use of the tune in his opera, Auld Robin Gray, 1784. The "Rakes" were the young gentlemen of the last century who frequented the "waters" of Mallow."

Mallow (Co. Cork) was a well-known spa town at that time. Moffat prints a song of uncertain attribution which is rather racier than the one I too remember from primary school; the words of the latter were apparently written by one A. H. Body, but I don't know who he might have been. So; the balance of probability would suggest an Irish origin for the tune, but it has also been current in England (and, of course, America) for some 250 years, and is used in Northwest Morris among other things.

There is certainly no harm in mixing English and Irish tunes; we have, after all, been doing exactly that, in both countries, for hundreds of years. Brighton Camp (another tune of disputed origins!) and Rakes of Mallow are often played together in sessions. More information at  The Fiddler's Companion:

Rakes of Mallow

Subject: RE: Provenance of 'Mallow Fling'?
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 01 Aug 03 - 09:26 AM

There are a dozen copies of the tune "Rakes of Mallow" listed that are prior to 1815 in the Irish tune index at www.erols.com/olsonw, but none are called "Mallow Fling".

Roger Fiske calls the tune "Mallow Fling" in 'English Theatre
Music in the 18th Century', but where does that name come from?

Subject: RE: Provenance of 'Mallow Fling'?
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 01 Aug 03 - 10:20 AM

Thanks for the info, folks!

Guest, could it be the song acquired the name of the tune? If the song became known from the theatre by people who didn't previously know the tune per se, they'd naturally call it by the song name. How many classical tunes do we know by the tv progs which have them as theme tune? Or (heaven healp us!) tv adverts!

Steve

Subject: RE: Provenance of 'Mallow Fling'?
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Aug 03 - 04:43 PM

An completed unexpurgated copy of "The Rakes of Mallow", and the tune, (with notes) can be found in the Scarce Songs 1 file at www.erols.com/olsonw