O For I For jig

"O For I For" ~ pronunciation = "Oh - Vohr - ee - Vohr"
"O" = Oh
"For = Vohr ~ as "four", but with a ‘V’ instead of the ‘F’
"I" ~ ee ~ as in ‘feet’

The single ‘F’ in Welsh / yn Cymraig is pronounced as ‘V’, while doubled, ‘FF’ is the same as the ‘F’ in English…

Oops! ~ spelling problem there, the Welsh for Welsh is ‘Cymraeg’…’e’ not ‘i’… 😏

Another member of the Major Mackie family? Although it doesn’t like to brag about it, this one.

Yet another one! Haven’t you found about 10 tunes that sound exactly like this one, David? We’ve gotta call someone on it — surely they can’t all lay claim to it!!

Key signature: D Major
Submitted on November 3rd 2006 by geoffwright.
https://thesession.org/tunes/6318

Well, you beat Geoff to the punch… So, where are the other 10? 🙂

Another Shandy?

"O For I For"
O = from
For is the mutation of Mor and means Sea
i = to

"O For I For" = "From Sea to Sea" ("From C to c’") 😉

Key signature: G Major
Submitted on May 29th 2004 by slainte.
https://thesession.org/tunes/3088

There you go boyos, this bears a hell of a lot more of a shade’s worth of comparison than ol’ Mackie… 😎

And here’s my transcription from the ‘Comments’ to make a comparison with ~

K: G Major
|: c |
BdB GBd | cec E2 G | FAF DFA | GBG D2 c |
BdB GBd | cec E2 G | FED AFD | G3 G2 :|
|: /B/c |
ded dBd | gbg d2 g | faf A2 B | cdc B2 d |
ded dBd | gbg d2 g |[1 fed cAF | G3 G2 :|[2 fed afd | g3 g2 ||

The Owl and the Pussy Cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"

Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.

"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

😉

Now you have the short and the long of it…

Oh yeah, notes, if you have a two octave range voice wise, yes, you can sing the poem to this tune, but you don’t repeat the parts, just AB, and you make just a slight adjustment for the little repeats at the end. The A-part is the first four lines, the B-part the next four lines, with the repeats and the, hold your breath now, second ending… 🙂 (Who’s mad?)

It is also played more N2 N rather than NNN… 😏

"~ with the repeats ~" ~ meaning in the lyrics, for example ~

The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon… 🙂

It would not surprise me in the least if this has a pre-existence. It came to me whole, but in several forms, including playing it in 3/4 time as a waltz. Also, I left out the bit above that also came naturally but which seemed at the time overkill ~ 😏 ?

If you are shy of the c’s 😉 you can avoid them high and low by playing, for example ~

A-part ~ E2 E / B-part ~ g2 g

~ and there’s no reason why flautists and whistlers can’t play an F nat is there? 😏

Just so you know, I did transpose this up one step into D to see if I could find any ABC’s on the Internet that might reveal an origin for this tune, but no luck. Anyway, here it is in D Major from that effort. You could push to the d’ in the B-part, meaning | ad’a fga | for bars 1 & 5, but here is is as | a2 a fga | ~

K: D Major
|: A^G=G |
FDF Adc | BGB e2 d | cAc eag | fdB A^G=G |
FDF A2 d | BG/A/B e2 d |[1 cAc f2 e | d3 :|[2 cBA gfe | d3 ||
|: fg^g |
a2 a fga | gbg B>ed | cec ABc | dcB A>fg |
a2 a f2 a | g/a/bg B2 d |[1 cBA gfe | d3 :|[2 cAc f2 e | d3 ||