Juice Of The Barley: A Song History

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"Juice of Barley" is an English country dance from the Playford books, and the Traditional Tune Archive glosses its title simply as beer.[1] The Archive also links its melody to an older tune, "Stingo" or "Oil of Barley," which it says John Playford had already printed in the first edition of The English Dancing Master in 1651.[1][2] The dance came later, and sources differ on exactly when: the Archive puts it in the third supplement to the seventh edition of The Dancing Master, dated 1689,[1] while Robert Keller's title index to the Dancing Master editions places it in the third appendix to the seventh edition of 1686, an appendix his bibliography dates to 1688.[3][4]

Tapestry of harvesters cutting and binding a golden grain crop, with a couple resting under a tree

Gobelins Manufactory, Summer: Harvest Scene, tapestry of wool, silk and gold, woven in the later 1600s. A grain harvest woven in the years the dance was printed, shown for the barley of the title; it has no connection to the tune.

Its early heading is also in dispute: the Archive says that supplement printed it as "Cold and raw, or Juice of Barley," whereas Keller's compendium lists it as "Juice of Barley" there and "Juice of Barly" in the eighth edition, which his bibliography dates to 1690, with "Cold and Raw" becoming its title only from the ninth edition through the sixteenth.[1][3][4][5] When Cecil Sharp and George Butterworth described it in The Country Dance Book, Part IV, copyrighted in 1916, they set it out as a longways dance "for as many as will" and named the eighth edition of 1690 as their source.[6]

The tune has since appeared in modern English country dance collections, among them Barnes's English Country Dance Tunes (1986), and Bare Necessities included it on English Country Dances, a 1987 recording on the Varrick label.[1] In Mark Gilston's two-volume set of dulcimer arrangements, the tune sits in English Country Dance Tunes, Volume 2, which Gilston issues under his own name as a PDF download.[7]

Our book that contains the song "Juice Of The Barley"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Juice of Barley (1)".
  2. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Oil of Barley".
  3. Country Dance and Song Society: "The Dancing Master, 1651–1728: Index J" (Robert M. Keller).
  4. Country Dance and Song Society: "The Dancing Master, 1651–1728: Bibliography" (Robert M. Keller).
  5. Country Dance and Song Society: "The Dancing Master, 1651–1728: Juice of Barley, The" (Robert M. Keller).
  6. Library of Dance: "Cecil J. Sharp and George Butterworth, The Country Dance Book, Part IV (1916)".
  7. Mark Gilston: "English Country Dance Tunes, Volume 2".
  8. Image: Gobelins Manufactory, Summer: Harvest Scene, tapestry of wool, silk and gold, woven in the later 1600s. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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