Dance Ti’ Thy Daddy three-two

Although this can stand alone as a two-part instrumental, it is best known as the tune of a Tyneside song, the words of which follow:

Come here, maw little Jacky,
Now aw’ve smoked mi baccy,
Let’s have a bit o’ cracky
Till the boat comes in.

Dance ti’ thy daddy, sing ti’ thy mammy,
Dance ti’ thy daddy, ti’ thy mammy sing;
Thou shall hev a fishy on a little dishy,
Thou shall hev a fishy when the boat comes in.

Here’s thy mother hummin’
Like a canny woman,
Yonder comes thy father,
Drunk - he cannot stand.

Dance ti’ thy daddy, sing ti’ thy mammy,
Dance ti’ thy daddy, ti’ thy mammy sing;
Thou shall hev a fishy on a little dishy,
Thou shall hev a haddock when the boat comes in.

Our Tommy’s always fuddling,
He’s so fond of ale,
But he’s kind to me,
I hope he’ll never fail.

Dance ti’ thy daddy, sing ti’ thy mammy,
Dance ti’ thy daddy, ti’ thy mammy sing.
Thou shall hev a fishy on a little dishy,
Thou shall hev a bloater when the boat comes in.

I like a drop mysel’
If I can get it sly,
And thou, my bonny bairn,
Will lik’t as well as I

Dance ti’ thy daddy, sing ti’ thy mammy,
Dance ti’ thy daddy, ti’ thy mammy sing;
Thou shall hev a fishy on a little dishy,
Thou shall hev a mackerel when the boat comes in.

May we get a drop,
Oft as we stand in need;
And weel may the keel row
That brings the bairns their bread.

Dance ti’ thy daddy, sing ti’ thy mammy
Dance ti’ thy daddy, ti’ thy mammy sing;
You shall hev a fishy on a little dishy,
You shall hev a salmon when the boat comes in.


- Anyway, that’s how it goes on the South Shields Sand-Dancers’ website.

Dance To Your Daddy is the name given to one or more versions of the slip-jig / three-two tune Cucunandy, which can be found in the Comments section under that tune. There is no (obvious) melodic connection between Cucunandy and Dance Ti’ Thy Daddy as entered above.

I’d say it was a three-two, not a waltz.

I put it in as a three-two, or certainly intended to. I’ll alter it.

Done. Now it says three-two in the Details, but 3/4 in the sheet music. Mine not to reason why.

To be played and / or sung fairly briskly, anyway.

If you wanted it in 3/2 you would have had to transcribe it with all the note values doubled, e.g. d2d2 d2B2 A2F2 etc.

I’ll know next time! Thanks.

James Fagan and Nancy Kerr do a blistering version of this song…as anyone who’s seen them perform at the National Folk festival in Australia will attest..you can see them playing this on the Celtic Roots Festival DVD part 2…this is not the Aussie festival, but one in Canada…I think..
Powerful stuff……
see yers…..

Tommy Potts plays a variant of this on The Liffey Banks titled "When The Ship Comes In" in 3/4 time.

In the noites Seamus Ennis writes:

"Tommy qualifies this as being a lullaby. I once heard a fiddle player of Edinburgh in Scotland, named John Mearns, sing a fragment of a child-dandling song with the same melodic and rhythmic structure, ‘You will get a fishie in a little dishie/You will get a fishie, when the boat comes home!’ The title recalled this, but Tommy’s melody is in a stricter 3/4 tempo and I can still visualise its soothing lullaby potentiality."

Tommy Potts doesn’t exactly turn this one inside-out, but he does switch the mode of the last bar of each part. Whether he learned it that way or interpreted it himself I don’t know. Given the lyric the effect is interesting and quite melancholic, as if the boat came home for you one day, loaded with nothing but dead fish.

https://thesession.org/recordings/display/289

Ref Dows comment about changing to 3/2 and doubling the notes. Just a technical point.. Would it work if you change the note length to 1/4 on the present ABC?

Yes and no. Yes on any other abc program. No on thesession.org. You’re not given any choice as to default note length here.

X: 1
T: Dance Ti’ Thy Daddy
M: 3/2
L: 1/8
R: three-two
K: Dmaj
|: d2d2 d2B2 A2F2 | E2e2 e2d2 c2A2 |
d2d2 d2B2 A2F2 | D2d2 d2c2 d4 :|
|: f4 f2e2 f2a2 | e4 e2d2 c2e2 |
f4 f2e2 f2a2 | A2d2 d2c2 d4 :|

We’ve also played this more like a slip jig, decidedly swung that way, slow-quick and triplets ~ and it can also be played with snaps, quick-slow…

It is also fun to take lower down, by a 4th or 5th, A or G…

for tunes with a similar rhythm, see my budding list at:
https://thesession.org/tunes/2579/comments

For tunes with a similar contour, see:
The Merry Boys Of Greenland: https://thesession.org/tunes/7679 (A version of the Fling version of this song, which is just as famous as the 3/4 version and does not appear to have been posted yet on this website)
or, of course, Cucanandy: https://thesession.org/tunes/1374