Volume I, song 086, page 87 - 'Lewis Gordon' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)

Verse 1: 'Oh! send Lewis Gordon hame, and the Lad I winna name; tho' his back be at the wa', Here's to him that's far awa'!' Chorus: 'Oh hon! my Highland-man: Oh! my bonnie Highland-man, Weel wou'd I my true love ken amang ten thousand Highland-men. Oh hon! my Highland-man: Oh! my bonnie Highland-man, Weel wou'd I my true love ken amang ten thousand Highland-men.' The 'Scots Musical Museum' is the most important of the numerous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collections of Scottish song. When the engraver James Johnson started work on the second volume of his collection in 1787, he enlisted Robert Burns as contributor and editor. Burns enthusiastically collected songs from various sources, often expanding or revising them, whilst including much of his own work. The resulting combination of innovation and antiquarianism gives the work a feel of living tradition. Burns, in his notes on the songs, comments that, 'this air is a proof how one of our Scots tunes comes to be composed out of another. I have one of the earliest copies of the song, and it is prefixed, 'Tune of Tarry Woo' (see page 45 of the 'Museum')'. Burns felt that most people, not just Jacobites, would be moved by this plaintive piece. This Jacobite song is believed to have been written by the Rev. Alexander Geddes, a Roman Catholic priest who suffered an early end.

Collection

Scots Musical Museum

Inventory Number

4503281

Title

Volume I, song 086, page 87 - 'Lewis Gordon' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)

Object Type

PhysicalObject

Measurements

- 130 x 211 mm