"Drunken Hiccoughs", also known as "Drunken Hiccups" or "The Oil City Quickstep",
is an American country dance tune (4/4 time) known in Western Pa. in G Major.
The parts are played AB. Both parts have 16 measures with the A part seeming to have
two 6 measure strains connected by two slow measures.
Bayard's note:
"This tune is also quite popular in Fayette County (Pa.). Its variants show little change. The title is one of the 'floating' variety, being mentioned in Odum, 'An American Epoch', p. 202, and Carmer, 'Stars Fell on Alabama', p. 276; and found in connection with a quite different air in Ford, p. 126. The tune's usual title in Pennsylvania is 'The Oil City Quickstep'."This tune is usually referred to as a "country dance tune" but it sounds like a polka to me and I have classified it as such. There is a slight resemblance of the A part of this tune to "Liberty" but "Liberty" doesn't have the two octave range that "Drunken Hiccoughs" does. It was collected from Mrs. Sarah Armstrong, (near) Derry, Pennsylvania on November 18, 1943 by Samuel Bayard. It was printed in Bayard's Hill Country Tunes (1944). |