Lark In The Morning: A Song History
The Lark in the Morning is an Irish double jig, usually in D major and most often set out in four parts.[1][2] Its names have shifted a good deal over time; according to the Traditional Tune Archive, most fiddlers settled on the present title only in the later twentieth century.[1] The piper and collector Seamus Ennis believed the jig grew out of an older piece called “The Lark’s March,” pointing to a five-part version played by the Kerry fiddler Pádraig O’Keeffe.[1]
Allen & Ginter, Meadow Lark, from the Birds of America series (N4), commercial color lithograph, 1888. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). A cigarette card shown in fun; the meadowlark is not a true lark, and the card has no connection to the tune.
Early recordings include one by the melodeon player Peter J. Conlon, issued on Gennett in 1923.[1][2] The Sligo-born fiddler James Morrison, who settled in New York, recorded a four-part setting for Columbia in 1926.[1] The Traditional Tune Archive credits Morrison’s record with much of the jig’s link to “The Wandering Minstrel,” and the two are still often heard together.[1] It also appears as “A Western Lilt” in Hugh McDermott’s Allan’s Irish Fiddler, a collection the same archive dates only roughly, to about the 1920s.[1]
The jig later entered Breandán Breathnach’s collection Ceol Rince na hÉireann (1963) and the repertoire of the Clare piper Willie Clancy, who said he learned it from his mother.[1] Martin Mulvihill gives it as music for the “Siege of Ennis” dance, and the Sligo-born flute player Kevin Henry recalled it being played at “American wakes,” the send-offs held before someone emigrated.[1] It remains a session staple, with 350 members of irishtune.info listing it among the tunes they play.[2]
Find books with Lark In The Morning for sale →