Digital Tradition Mirror

The Rakes of Mallow (2)

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

The Rakes of Mallow (2)

Beauing, belling, dancing, singing,
Breaking windows, damning, sinking,
Ever raking, never thinking,
  Live the Rakes of Mallow.
Spending faster than it comes,
Beating Bawds and Whores and Duns,
Bacchus' true begotten sons,
  Live the Rakes of Mallow.

One time nought but claret drinking,
Then like politicians thinking,
To raise the sinking-fund when sinking,
  Live the Rakes of Mallow.
One time flush of money store,
Then as any poet poor,
Kissing Queens, and then a W--re,
  Live the Rakes of Mallow.

When at home with dada dying,
Still for Mallow waters crying,
But when there, good claret plying,
  Live the Rakes of Mallow.
Living short, but merry lives,
Going where the D---l drives,
Keeping Misses, but no Wives,
  Live the Rakes of Mallow.

Racking tenants, stewards teizing,
Swiftly spending, slowly raising,
Wishing to spend all our days, in
  Raking thus at Mallow.
Thus to end a raking life,
We grow sober, take a Wife,
Ever after live in strife,
  Wish again for Mallow.

    Although widely known, the widely known version of this song
is usually somewhat expurgated. The song with tune was printed
about 1740 as a single sheet issue, copies of which are in the
British Library and the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Other copies of
the song are in <<The Charmer>>, 3rd. ed., p. 277, Edinburgh,
1765, and it is possibly in the two earlier editions, 1749 and
1751, which I have not seen. The song is also in the 4th ed. I,
p. 277, 1782, in <<The Charms of Melody>>, Dublin, 1776, and in
the <<Encyclopedia of Comic Songs>>, London, 1819. In the first
of the preceding it is given as four double length stanzas. A
copy of the 1740's, given as eight four-line verses is in NLS MS
6299. An expurgated copy of the song was given by T. Crofton
Crocker in <<Popular Songs of Ireland>>, 1839, with the tune
cited for it as "Sandy lent the man his mull." That tune
direction is circular, since the first verse and chorus of the
latter are in David Herd's MS, c 1776, (reprinted by Hecht,
<<Songs from David Herd's Manuscripts>>, 1904) with the tune
direction "The Rakes of Mallow."
   The tune was printed among the Irish ones in Burke Th
of the 1770's, the Vickers MS from Northumberland (edited by
Math. Seattle as <<The Great Northern Tune Book>>, 1987) and in
another annonymous one of c 1770 in the British Library, MS
Add'l. 23971. It appeared in John Brysson's <<A Collection of
Curious Tunes>>, p. 33, n.d. [1791], and was used in a medley of
otherwise Scots tunes in the overture to the Arnolds' comic opera
<<Auld Robin Gray>>, 1794. It was printed in Dublin about 1805 in
Hime's <<Forty Eight Original Irish Dances>>, part II, p. 4. The
tune copy used here is that from <<Riley's Flute Melodies>>, I,
p. 7, n.d. [1814] New York.

WBO
OCT98

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