Seventeen comments
I Buried My Wife And Danced On Top Of Her
Along with its original name, this tune is a great one to play. Enjoy! ; )
I Buried My Wife
Jeremy posted a version of this ages ago, although to me it was closer to Frieze Britches, a related but disinct tune.
The version I go by is in D major, and has been widely recorded, notably by Martin Hayes.
In Josh’s post here, I’m assuming those C’s are meant to be little c’s?
Correction
Yes, my careless mistake. The C’s are supposed to be little c’s. I’m sorry for the confusion, if any.
Jack Wright & I like to call this one "I’ll bury your wife & dance on her grave"
This Setting via Seattle
This setting comes from "Smoke In Your Eyes - A Complilation of Irish Tunes Played at Seattle Sessions" as collected by Caoimhin Gaimh.
It’s not surprising that Josh and I have the same setting for this tune as we both share the same teacher, Skip Healy (www.skiphealy.com), who is a good friend of Caoimhin and spends a lot of time out there at various tionols and trad events.
I don’t know if this makes this setting more or less legitimate, but that’s where it comes from.
Take care,
John Harvey
http://www.rhodeirish.net
Name Confusion
O’Neill’s lists this as "The Frieze Breeches" with the alternate title "I Buried My Wife And Danced On Top Of Her".
Other sets
I learned this tune a while ago in Dublin from Patricia Logan ,(excellent piper and teacher), learned it as the second tune in a set, first being, East of Glendart (Humours of Glendart) this one, and to wrap up with Sean Bui, three fairly easy tunes, but good practice especially for beginers!
who wrote this?
I Buried My Wife
We play this as follows, in Dmix (F sharps, c naturals), although sometimes we do the |dcA dcA| phrase in the B part with c sharps because one of our local fiddlers learned it that way from Martin Hayes at a Valley of the Moon workshop.
X: 1
T: I Buried My Wife And Danced On Her Grave
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
R: jig
K: Dmix
DED F2 G|AdB cAF|~ G3 BAG|FAF GEA|
DED F2 G|AdB cAF|GFG BAG|1 AFD D2 E :|2 AFD DFA||
d2 e fed|faf gfe|d2 e fed|dcA dcA|
d2 e fed|f/g/af gfe|d2 A BAG|1 AFD DFA :|2 AFD D2 E||
“I Buried My Wife And Danced On Top Of Her” ~ assorted keys
Key signature: D Major
Submitted on November 18th 2001 by Will Harmon.
https://thesession.org/tunes/383
Key signature: G Major
Submitted on August 29th 2003 by dafydd.
https://thesession.org/tunes/3121
Martin Hayes’ Version
As noted above, Martin plays it Dmix.
i was at a workshop for singing in urm…….. what did you call that place…..? i’ll get back to you on that……
anyway, we learnt a song called "cunnla dear" the tune was exactly the same to the this tune…. has anyone any info on that…
it went
"who’s that there who’s knocking the ditches down?"
GOT IT !
MAGHERY, CO. SUMTHING NI NORTHEN IRELAND
PHEW, THE RELIEF!
Cunla - not this tune. A related, but distinct one: Frieze Britches:-
https://thesession.org/tunes/34
Composer of “I Buried My Wife etc.”
though someone asked this quite a few years ago, I thought I’d give a less than timely answer. The tune "I Buried My Wife and Dance On Top of Her" was written by the blind piper Garrett Barry (1847-1899). I can’t find the source, but I seem to remember reading that it was likely composed around the 1870s, but I could be wrong so let’s keep that between us.
I buried..
Garret Barry was the source of the tune. I have never seen it claimed he was the composer.
Re: I Buried My Wife And Danced On Her Grave
Is the title meant to be as hideous as it sounds, or is there an inside joke that I’m missing? Wonderful tune.