Doodley Doodley Dank slip jig

An interesting tune with the funny title. Obviously this slip jig is a cousin of “The Cock and the Hen” (https://thesession.org/tunes/93). It seems both tune have a Donegal origin. Please add more information about the two tunes.

Cock & the Hen has a Donegal Origin? Doesn’t strike me that way in the slightest, where’d you get that info from?

The Donegal repertoire supposedly contains more slip jigs than those of other regions of Ireland, so it’s highly probable that many of the slip jigs which we think of as pan-Irish are in fact of Donegal origin… On the other hand, it is possible that many of the slip jigs which are now played in Donegal were once popular throughout Ireland but, for some reason, have gone into decline everywhere except Donegal.

Sounds good to me, I the “Cock & the Hen” just struck me as a pan-Irish slip jig like “An Phis Fluich” or the like… I wouldn’t say this tune is an obvious cousin of the "Cock & the Hen though, for starters the A part of this tune is in G major whereas the others A part is F#min, but both of the b-parts are in D. There is a similarity in the way they both hang onto that first note a bit. cousins? sort of, there both slip jigs - but they are different in structure & key altogether.

Sorry for the exaggeration, but both sound similar to my ears while they are not entirely the same in structure.

I just thought “The Cock and the Hen” is originally from Donegal because someone informed it’s in the tunebook “The Northern Fiddlers.” But, yes, it doesn’t necessarily mean it comes from Donegal.

Brad, thank you for pointing out these points.

Didn’t mean to sound too rough, I see what you mean. I just had fears of half baked guitarists banging away an F#minor chord against the opening G of this slip jig.

Go Locrian~get funny looks

The sleeve notes for The Brass Fiddle don’t give an origination for the tune, just says it was very popular in the Teileann (Teelin) and Kilcar areas of Donegal. Con Cassidy believed that it was Frank Cassidy (died 1971) who gave the tune its title (which of course match the rhythm of the first bar of the tune).

The liner notes for The Tap Room Trio say that the name comes from a nonsense verse sung to the first part around Teelin in Donegal.

This tune is not a variation on the Cock and Hen but is identical. The tune’s origin is possibly very old, and may refer to clubs in the 18th century called by this name where men and women would play a game called ‘Cock and Hen’ which would result in people pairing up for sex. A versions is in the Northern Fiddler p160.

Transcribed from Con Cassidy’s recording.

To me this tune always felt like the A was in G and the B was in D, though the way I hear Con Cassidy’s version he doesn’t play C or C# at all in the A. Though I feel like the way the melody plays out in the A it seems to really outline a G major chord, then once it reaches the B part it feels very much like it switches to D. I know emphasizing a chord that isn’t the tonic doesn’t necessarily change the key of the tune, but they have such different vibes to me that I think of the parts in different keys. I also like to accompany this sometimes with a long Bm chord in the A part….

I agree about the two tunes being the same but in different keys, when I first heard “The Cock and The Hen”, as the “Drogheda Slip Jig” on Joe McHugh and Barry Carroll’s amazing album, I thought “Wow this is exactly the same as DDD but in F#m!”.