What tune is this?

March 12, 2025 11:35 AM

I've got part of what I think is an English folk song stuck in my head. What is it?

Here's an link to a recording of the tune being poorly whistled.

I'll be deleting this recording, so for posterity here's a very rough transcription of what I think the basic notes are:
F#4 D4 D4
D4-E4-D4
C4# A3 A3
A3-C4#-E4
A4 E4 A4 G4
F#4-E4-D4-C#4-D4

Does anyone recognize the tune?

I've tried google's song search and various online song finders with no luck.

For whatever it's worth I believe the track I heard this from is available on Spotify and is played on one or more rather scratchy fiddles. Beyond that I am not sure.
I think it's a folk song but it's always possible it's from a soundtrack or something.

posted by rustybullrake to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

I don’t know the tune, but that’s actually some pretty good whistling.
posted by dianeF at 12:47 PM on March 12 [3 favorites]

I hear a lot of parallels in this to All God's Chillun and Momma's Little Baby Likes Short'nin' Bread.

I am guessing the genre is not folk song, but popular music from about the twenties and thirties.
posted by Jane the Brown at 1:13 PM on March 12 [1 favorite]

Last House in Connacht?

Bashful Alley?

Musipedia has some good resources for music search, including playing a tune on a javascript piano or using "melodic contours"/Parsons Code which has gone a long way to settling earworms for me in the past.
posted by adekllny at 2:15 PM on March 12 [2 favorites]

From your description & sound file, this sounds very, very much like an "old time fiddle tune". That was my guess just from hearing the sound file, and then when you mention "scratchy violin" that pretty much seals the deal. Plus the rhythmic stomping, which I'll wager is quite similar to how it might have sounded in the original.

There are many varieties of fiddling - Appalachian Old Time, Bluegrass, a bunch more American styles, English, Scottish, Irish, a bunch more European styles, and so on and on.

You can hear a sampler of a bunch of different types of tunes here. Yours is definitely in a fast duple time (so 2/4 or 4/4, or possibly 6/8, but not 3/4) and seems to have something of a swing to it (which might be 6/8, but could also be some form of swung 2/4 or 4/4).

That puts it in the realm of maybe something like a two-step or a jig, maybe a polka or a foxtrot, but definitely not a slower form like an air, or a 3/4 feel like a waltz. It doesn't sound like a ragtime, swing, or Scottish (like a Strathspey) because I'm not hearing the characteristic rhythms of those dances, though it is hard to tell for certain from such a short excerpt.

I can't find any place online where you can search fiddle tunes by profile or such, but if you could find such a place that would be your best bet. And if you ask around in fiddling forums, someone might recognize the tune or at least the type of dance form which would help narrow the search. Fiddlers tend to know hundreds and hundreds of tunes. They might also know a place you could search by melodic profile or such.

If you can narrow down where you might have heard it, that could help. For example, if you live in the UK and are unlikely to have heard random American fiddling that might eliminate those as a possibility.

Reddit fiddlers forum

Traditional Tune Archive

OId Time Fiddle Tunes

Fiddle Hangout

Note that some of those have forum areas where you could create an account & ask a question. Unlike many music AskMes, your rendition is plenty good enough that someone who knows this tune will recognize it immediately. Even if not the specific tune, they may be able to guess the style or dance type.
posted by flug at 4:39 PM on March 12 [2 favorites]