Upstairs In A Tent (reel) on The Session

Also known as Down With The Mail, The Green Gate, Jeannie Tied The Bonnet Tight, Jennie, Tie The Bonnet, Jenny Lace Your Tight, Jenny Lace Your Tights, Jenny Tie The Blanket, Jenny Tie The Bonnet, Jenny Tie Your Bonnet, Jenny Tied The Bonnet Tight, Jenny, Tie The Bonnet, Jenny, Tie Your Bonnet, Lassie Tie Your Bonnet, Lassies Tie Your Bonnets, Lizzie’s Bonnet, Rambler’s Rest, The Rambler’s Rest, Tie The Bonnet, Tie The Bonnet Tight, Tie The Ribbons, Tie Your Bonnet.

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Upstairs in a Tent

I first heard this tune on uillean pipes at a late-night/early-morning session in Gaithersburg, Maryland, home to the Washington DC Irish Festival. A version is given in Brendan Breathnach’s Ceol Rince na hEireann, Volume 3 (tune #96), transcribed from the late great Co. Clare piper Willie Clancy. Breathnach assigns a host of other names to the tune, including In and Out the Harbor.

This tune is part of the O’Rourke’s set in the Chieftain’s second album. I have also heard an interesting variation of this played by piper Kirk Lynch in Scartaglen’s album. Iv’e been looking for the name of it for ages, and what a relief it is to find it!

It’s in O’Neill’s as "Tie The Bonnet".

I first came across this tune on Finbarr Dwyer’s Button accordion album. Recently, it’s been adopted into our session repoitre so I’d better learn it.

Recorded by Michael Tubridy as "In and Out the Harbour", which is how I learned it.

I know a piper who used to live in a tent in North Belfast in an old, very drafty top flat. He used to cover the canvas and fill the tent with duvets and quilts and weathered the winter sleeping and reading away like that! There was no heating in the flat but he said he wanted to keep his carbon-footprint light. I guess that’s what you call ‘green living’!
The tent was too small to play the pipes in, though. I hear he’s moved to a gas-heated place now but complains the air’s too dry for the reeds!

I don’t know whether he knows The Humours of Winter
https://thesession.org/tunes/146 ;-)

“Tie the Bonnet” / “The Rambler’s Rest” ~ the history bit ~ O’Neill 1903 & 1907

X: 2
T: Tie the Bonnet
B: "O’Neill’s Music of Ireland 1850 Melodies", 1903, page 252, tune #1351
S: Beamish
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: AMaj
|: A2 (Ag) fdec | A2 (Ac) BGGB | A2 (Ag) fdef | gfge dBGB :|
a2 (af) gfed | cAeA cAce | a2 (af) gfef | gfge dBGB |
a2 (af) gfed | cAeA cAce | afge fdef | gfge dBGB |]

X: 3
T: The Rambler’s Rest
B: "O’Neill’s Music of Ireland 1850 Melodies", 1903, page 263, tune #1415
S: Early
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: ADor
|: B |\
A2 (Ag) fde^c | A2 (Ac) BGGB | A2 (Ag) fdef | {a/}gfgd BG G :|
f |\
eaaf gfed | cAeA cdef | eaaf gfef | gfgd BGGf |
eaaf gfed | ^cAeA cdef | afge fdef | gfge BG G |]

X: 4
T:Tie the Bonnet
B: "O’Neill’s Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems", 1907, page 110, tune #606
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: ADor
|: A2 (Ag) fdec | A2 (Ac) BGGB | A2 (Ag) fdef | gfge dBGB :|
A2 (af) gfed | cAeA cAce | a2 (af) gfef | gfge dBGB |
a2 (af) gfed | cAeA cAce | afge fdef | gfge dBGB |]

“Tie The Bonnet” ~ see also

Submitted on May 17th 2007 by Dr. Dow.
https://thesession.org/tunes/7222

“Jenny, Tie Your Bonnet” / “The Rambler’s Rest” ~ other possibilities 8-)

Upstairs In A Tent reel

Four settings

Ten comments