> Steeleye Span > Songs > Jigs: The Bride’s Favourite / Tansey’s Fancy

Jigs: The Bride’s Favourite / Tansey’s Fancy

[trad. arr. Steeleye Span]

These are two Irish jigs recorded by Steeleye Span for their 1972 album Below the Salt, though they actually played Tansey’s Fancy first and then The Bride’s Favourite. Tansey’s Fancy refers to Irish fiddler Joe Tansey who was born in Calteraun, Gurteen, County Sligo and emigrated to New York in the early 1900s where he quickly became a fixture of the Irish diaspora musical scene in the early 20^th century. The album’s sleeve notes commented somewhat off-topic:

So there we was sitting in this dressing room when in comes this guy with glasses and he says, “Oim afraid youse got de wrong toitles for de toons,” and the he goes and rattles off a whole load of Garlic what we couldn’t make out, so we gets the roadies to see him off. Handy things roadies.