Tom Mhick’s polka

Learnt on the album A Flying Start by Paul Moran and Fergal Scahill. In the sleeve, Paul attributes it to the playing of Johnny O’Leary.

I wish I knew more about Tom Mhick. There’s quite a few tunes, some with other names, that are attributed to him, including as someone folks have picked up several of the polkas on site from…

X: 2
T: Tom Mhick’s
M: 2/4
L: 1/8
R: polka
K: Gmaj
|: D |\
G>A Bd | ed B2 | dc Ad | ed BA |
G>A B/c/d | ed BA/B/ | dc AB | AG G :|
|: d |\
g>f ed | ed BA/B/ | dc A/B/c/d/ | ed B/c/d |
gg/f/ ed | ed B2 | dc AD | G2 G :|

~ from the playing of Paudie O‘Connor & John O’Brien, who have done a lovely recording together: “Wind & Reed”
https://thesession.org/recordings/3167

This is the second of three polkas, track 1…

Alternative title from https://thesession.org/recordings/1201

Added by ceolachan - June 8th, 2011

Surely this is a setting of “Can’t You Dance the Polka” or “New York Girls” - ?

You pose that as question, Nigel. I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Girls, which gives 1860 as the date when NYG (CYDTP) was collected. Anyone know anything about Tom Mhick and his dates? Maybe another case where a tune was picked up from a player and attracted the attribution simply by association.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvxyT1VpCVA&t=24s

play video

Transcription with variants based on the whistle playing and notations of John O’Brien/O’Briain, brother of fellow musicians, uileann pipes & whistles, Denis/Donncha and Mick/Michael…

I used to do quite lot of group and chanty singing and this was a regular. For me, while there might be a hint of similarity, I would not call it the same tune…

For a little history:

New York Girls / Can’t You Dance the Polka
https://mainlynorfolk.info/steeleye.span/songs/newyorkgirls.html

New York Girls
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Girls