I’m wondering if anyone has the melody for the above song(s). It’s strange that this is an old tune and has been recorded a fair number of times, but cannot be found on the Session or any of the other sites I use. I’ve found several instances of the lyrics, but no actual music.
Very odd. Free audio and/or video recordings out there, too many to count. Numerous free lyrics & (for what they’re worth) chords pdfs. But no free sheet music at all.
Apparently all the versions of the melody in print are copyrighted. You can buy some, and there’s samples available of bits of those, maybe you can work it out from there:
https://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/score/HL-31275.html
Hi Garry. The Session is an an Irish Trad Music site. Songs are not Irish Trad Music, so you won’t find song tunes here.
I myself am primarily a folk singer, with pretensions of becoming a trad musician. I must say though that I’m a little surprised at anyone looking for a tune for Mrs McGrath. Listen on YouTube, Google lyrics. For God’s sake avoid Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics!
Best of luck!
To be fair some song tunes are played as instrumentals and some instrumental tunes have lyrics added to them, both exist within the general area of ‘Irish trad’ so its not always easy to draw a hard and fast line between them. But like Alexander says Mrs McGrath isnt a hard tune to learn! ‘Why didnt ye run from the cannonball?’
Thank you, Alexander. I’m not sure, though, I understand the distinction you’re making between Irish Traditional music and “songs”. There are numerous Irish songs here on the site including “Cockles and Mussels”, “Whiskey in a Jar”, “Fields of Athenry”, “Galway Shawl”, and “Dirty Old Town”.
According to Wikipedia, “Mrs. McGrath” was written sometime between 1807 and 1814 and was published in 1876 so I would think it would qualify as “traditional” music.
I should also say I’m not just trying to learn the tune for myself, but would like to have it in abc format so I could distribute to a group I play with. Just trying to save a little time (but, hey, it’s a new year, right!)
Thanks for any additional information you can provide. Again, I’m just looking for the melody.
Hi Gary & Happy New Year. To amplify on what Christy & Alexander said above, the whole thing hangs on one question, to wit: What’s the difference between tunes & songs? Short answer is, songs got words, tunes don’t. But since that’s a sweeping generalization, some songs have the words stripped out & get played as tunes while some tunes accumulate words.
The definition of ‘Irish Trad Music’ here means that the focus of The Session is on tunes, not songs. Like any large, amorphous grouping of folks, things get fuzzy around the edges and the occasional song creeps into the data base. They don’t eat too much, so no one has ever bothered to initiate a purge.
And just because ‘The Fields of Athenry’ made it into the data base doesn’t change the fact that the focus is on tunes.
Hope that helps. Finally, many of the members here do transcribe tunes from their own playing or from various recordings for submission to the site. A ‘pretty please’ to one of them might get you the abc’s you seek.
Thank you, J.P. and Happy New Year to you. Your comments help to clear things up. Since I was only asking about the melody to the song/tune and not the lyrics, I thought I was in safe territory! And, as you suggest, I would be eternally grateful if anyone has the abc and would be willing to post it. Thanks again!
My friend has a song where it’s this melody but the lyrics are about a woman strangling a guy with her bra straps.
Whilst I certainly agree that it’s the melody of an Irish song, rather than a tune in its own right, I see no harm in posting it. I’ve posted it here:
https://thesession.org/tunes/22619#setting45775
It’s in the Colm O’Lochlainn “Street Ballads of Ireland” with lyrics and melody.
There is another version /parody called ‘The Professor and Mrs McGrath’. The first 2 verses go something like:
’Now Mrs McGrath, the Professor said,
would you like to make a Doctor out of your son Ted?
With a stethescope and a bowler hat,
now Mrs McGrath, wouldn’t you like that?"
"Now Ted came up to the Big City,
To go and study medecine in U.C.D.
But he didn’t get on too well I fear,
For he took to the women and he took to the beer"
I’m sure that there are a few more verses to this particular version, does anyone know where I could find these verses?
Gary,
Here’s a good site for ballads, that usually include TABs for various instruments, in this link GDAE….
http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/mandolin-tab/Mrs_Mcgrath.htm
Eric
Disregard
