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Nothing at All
Last updated: 22.01.22
Nothing at All was collected in 1905 by D Hammond and published in The Hammond And Gardiner Manuscript which in turn was published by Frank Purslow in his Marrow Bones. The tune and song were taken down in Piddletown, Dorset, from Robert Barratt.
This is an amusing 4-verse song about - well, wait for it - nothing at all with a nice And sing fal-the-ral-lal-the-li-day chorus. Basically the song's message is that whatever life throws at us, at the end of the day, it means absolutely nothing at all. Great stuff!
In Marrow Bones, Frank Purslow writes that like John Appleby, this appears to be an adaptation of a dance tune which might have been in 9/8, a rhythm still popular in Ireland, but now [1965] almost non-existent in English dance music, although it has survived in one or two Morris Tunes.