Strange and interesting tune titles

I have heard a few really odd titles for tunes..
The Blue Pigeon - Reel
Throw The Beetle At Her- Slip Jig
Any more wacky titles?
Often wondered how some tunes got their names?
I mean there must be one hell of a story to “Throw The Beetle at Her”
:confused:
The Blue Pigeon may also be known as The Green Pigeon?
David how about “The Bunny’s Hat”? Where did that title come from???

Not Safe With a Razor, I Had a House with a Chimney Built On Top Of It, Come Back with my Bloody Car, The Farting Badger are a few of my favorites

“Johnny’s Haunted Poncho” Was a tune I writted once. :boggle:

That tune has become legend! Can we get a posting of it???

For the Viz readers..

‘Chapel Hat Pegs’


I seem to remember Manchester players/bands being a fair source of the ‘gentlemans more unusual titles’??

Alan

The mouse that straggled the cat (Reel) a tuneI heard Joe Burke accordion player from Galway play live in Concert. He played the bunch of keys before the tune.

Never heard the name The Blue Pigeon, but The Green Pigeon is one of my favourites. How about Once in a Blue Moose, or the perennial piper’s standard, The Wet Pussy?

djm

Then there’s the classics: Pull the knife and stick it in again, Fasten the leg in her (hmm, no inuendo there), Go to the Devil and shake yourself, etc.

Then there’s The Wet Quim(same tune?) and I Buried My Wife and Danced On Top of Her. There is a tune by the Tannahill Weavers called Phuktiphano(sp)…sound it out.

Upstairs in atent is a nice name of a tune,

I walked down stairs after spending an hour with the tune and there was a strange woman in the lounge.

I said “Hi”, she said “Hi”.

I said “What are you doing?”

She said “I’m mending the bunny’s hat”.

It wasn’t a dream, there were no drugs involved.

David

Larry the beer drinker and the floating crowbar are good names for excellent tunes.

Nice story David! There used to be a woman come to our sessions who sat knitting wooly jumpers for tin whistles but nobody ever wrote a tune about it.

Ken

I imagine that many of those odd titles are either anglicised gaeilge or mistranslations.

Many others I’m sure have Gaeilge playing an amusing role precisely because it is assumed not to be understood - for instance, imagine playing for a senior citizens club.

“oo…what’s the name of this one, dearie?”
“an phis fluich,” he says with a straight face

Theres one in the Goodman collection called “Box the Monkey” which always baffeled me. Nice tune though.
What about “The Cat that Kitteled on Jamies Wig” and the Classic which I think may be attributed to Carolan or one of his contemporarys,
“Cock up your Beaver”
Say that without grining like Kenneth Williams.

Tommy

A bit of a recurring subject this. Not to repeat the obvious ones: There was the one I was going to write in honour of one particularly pushy piper: the Left Handed Wanker. And the old Scottish favourite: Father’s Boots are too big for Willie.
Edited to add Goodman’s ‘The Black Stripper’ :stuck_out_tongue:

In Heather Clarks UP tutor book theres a tune called “Smash the Windows :smiley:”. Glares at the PC with a mallot in hand :laughing: /winks at the Mac computer.

L42B :smiley:

The tune ‘A Claiomh i Laimh’ is also known as ‘Cork Lasses’ or ‘Sword in Hand’, tame enough, but also as ‘Little Pig Lamenting The Empty Trough’…

Cheers

DavidG

quote=“Antaine”]I imagine that many of those odd titles are either anglicised gaeilge or mistranslations.

A friend of mine always had funny translations (where possible) of tune titles, for example “Hardyman the Fiddler” - “Hartmann der Geiger” ( :laughing: :laughing: if you have German). Imagine an Irish - English translation (that maybe is meant dead serious).
Hans

A few frae the George Petrie(1789-1866) Collection

For my breakfast you must get a bird without a bone. Tune 777

**Blow,Old Woman,and be merry.**Tune1121

**Cousin Frog went out to ride.Fa lee linkin laddy oh.**Tune647

**If it is the pea you want.**Tune1312

**Red Regan and the Nun .**Tune418 :wink:

**Oh Johnny,dearest Johnny.What dyed your hands and cloaths?He answered him fit"by a bleeding at the nose…"**Tune693

**Goodbye and my blessing to the troubles of the world.**Tune1462

Cock up your Beaver appears in the Goodman Manuscripts as “Cock up &c &c” in order to preserve the dignity of Victorian sensibility and morality,but was the beaver in question not that conjured up by yer mucky minds, but the beaver hat which was a popular item of fashion in those days? :wink:
Slán Go Foill
Uilliam

From Geoghegan’s

“Blab not what you ought to smother”
“Thump the bitches”

There is also a Burns poem/song Cock up &c &c, which drove Frank Skinner into schoolboy hysterics when he decided to look into Burns on national TV. Good thing he never discovered folk music…hey the cuckoo, ho the cuckoo, hie the cuckoos nest…