> Brass Monkey > Songs > The Marriage Vow

The Marriage Vow

[trad. arr. Brinsford / Carthy / Evans / Kirkpatrick / Williams]

Brass Monkey playes this tune in 2004 on their fifth album, Flame of Fire. John Kirkpatrick commented in the sleeve notes:

John Playford was a music publisher who had the brilliant idea of issuing a book of notations and tunes for Country Dances in 1651—The English Dancing Master. It was the first book in the world to feature printed music, and it was a smash hit, which he and his family kept running for years. From there com Maiden Lane (1651), New Whitehall (1701), Dick’s Maggot (1702), and The Queen’s Birthday (1703).

Another tune in Mr Playford’s first edition of 1651 was called Saturday Night and Sunday Morn. A rare survivor, this was still being extensively used by Cotswold Morris Dancers over two hundred years later. To one of the Longborough versions of this tune, under the name The Marriage Vow, Martin Brinsford spent many happy years dancing with The Gloucestershire Old Spot Morris Dancers.