Hi Guys, I have been looking for this tune for a long time. I know it by The Cukoo’s Nest, but when I seach it, I always get different tunes. Luckily I found this on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4cuf4trLLU This is the version I am looking for. Does anyone know this tune by a different name, or where I could find this tune on thesessions? thanks.
It’s The Cuckoo’s Nest. Not really a session tune. It’s the melody of the song of that name. Maybe check on Mudcat. Or ask Jim Stone if he has the dots. Easy enough to learn by ear.
Another name for it is Jacky Tar.
Just to add to the confusion, here’s a unique setting of Jacky Tar that gets played a bit locally although it’s not nearly as widespread as the seshdotcom version:
http://www.last.fm/music/Tom+Dahill/_/Jacky+Tar?autostart
I got it from Tom Dahill who reports he got it from Paddy O’Brien (of Co. Offaly), and I assume due to its relative obscurity that it might be just an O’Brien version only; seems like pretty much anyone who plays this version got it either directly or circuitously from Paddy. While it’s not as well known, it’s the one I favor by far, myself. 
Back to the name The Cuckoo’s Nest, there’s a three-part hornpipe folks in my area tend to think of: http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/2395
I’ve heard about six significantly different ways that people play it (including two variations - at least - on the A section, in what order the B and C sections are played, and where, if at all, do we play the Fnats?), so consensus at a session is largely a matter of waiting to see what the tunestarter’s up to.
That’s true; the major and minor song settings can be played as hornpipes. I stand corrected.
It wasn’t my intention; as usual I was just hurtling heedlessly ahead in giddy pursuit of a new shiny object that happened to pass by, and in the end I somehow managed the graceless success of toppling splat-on to it in spite of my odds not being so good from the skills end of things. The hornpipe/not-hornpipe question didn’t even occur to me, so blinkered with thrashing and self-absorbed purpose was I.
I dint even know dere wuz songz. I came up with this from Ryan’s Fancy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc8KcQqTxiY
…but this “Jacky Tar” doesn’t bear any genetic resemblance to the above tune in question, best as I can tell.
The tune, Jacky Tar, I know is different. 
Though I think Joe McKenna had a tune called Jacky Tar on his cd that is the one I am looking for. Thanks for the help and info guys. I already learned most of it through listening to the tune from Jim.
See, you’ve proved to me that you probably usually don’t really need the dots. Ditch the dependency habit.
Yea, I find myself depending less and less on the dots now.
To my ear, that version sounds very similar to the one our ceili band played. We got that version from Marty Somberg, one of our fiddlers. He had some odd story for where he got the version which definitely did not involve either Paddy O’Brien, but perhaps that just means the link goes back five or six hops…
If you are a music reader go to
http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/tunefind
Type in “cuckoo’s nest” (be sure to allow for lots of hits) and check out the versions there. Look at the gif files to see the versions quickly, or check out the midi versions to get a vague idea of the sound. I noticed a couple of versions in G major that were the three part version though I think the parts might be in a different order.
Yeah, I’ve heard that setting maybe once or so before, too. It strikes me as sort of like the missing link, but it’s more overall like the one I posted than anything. This makes me wonder if Paddy O. had a prior source more like the very setting you just posted, and if so, what the history and provenance of that setting might be (I love that stuff). He lives hereabouts, so I’d love to have the chance to ask him.
The OP is a rather different version of the Cuckoo’s Nest that I’m familiar with from the Grey Larson album: The Green House, but still recognizable. The version on the album has an interesting interview with the gaffer who taught it to Grey as well, a good listen.
If you are looking for a very early version of the tune, and about 200 others (not all ITM), I have posted for free download a copy of Henry Becks Flute Book, circa 1786 at: http://www.box.net/shared/0gcl3u8ad9. I’ve had the link posted in the flute forum for a week or so now, but will cross post it here and in the whistle forum to be sure that it gets the widest viewing before I take it down from Boxnet.
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/10389 Here is the version I was looking for.