Salmon Tails Up the Water, aka Knockabower Polka #2*


Key: G

Form: Polka

ABC: 

X:22
T: Knockabower Polka #2
Z: Jim Davis for CoMando TOW #22 2008
M: 2/4
L: 1/8
Q: 200
K: G
P: A
"G"GB B/c/B/A/|GB B>A|"D7"FA AB/A/|FA D2|
"G"GB B>A|GB d>g|"D7"fd cA|"G"G2 G2:|
P: B
|:"G"g>f gd|"A7"ga a>g|"D7"fd d>e|fg a/f/d|
"G"g>f g>f|"A7"ga a>g|"D7"fd cA|"G"G2 G2:|
P: C
|:"G"B>A Bc|"D7"d>c AG|F>E FG|AB c/B/A|
"G"B>A Bc|"D7"d>c A>g|fd cA|"G"G2 G2:|

MP3:

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Youtube:

Source (if known): Trad? Can you help?

Other Tunes in Set:

Region: Ireland

*Notes: There seems to be some confusion about this tune.  The Knockabower Polka information above is pretty close to the Salmon Tails tune we play locally but with a third part, C. Our version comes from Laura Risk’s cd, “Tunes 2003: 82 More Tunes From Laura Risk”:

Another quite different tune also goes by the same name name, Salmon Tails Up The Water and is said to come from Northeast England.

A site visitor kindly alerted me to this, writing, “Your recording actually consists of the first two parts of the widely-known three-part Knockabower Polka. Like most popular polkas, this tune also goes by a good dozen other names, starting with “Knocknaboul Polka no. 1″, and appears in over a dozen tunebooks…”

Another visitor points out that “The town of Knocknaboul (or, in Irish, Chnoc na bPoll) is located in County Kerry.”