Volume III, song 259, page 268 - 'My heart's in the...
Volume III, song 259, page 268 - 'My heart's in the Highlands' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)
Verse 1 (to the tune of 'Failte na miosg'): 'My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here; My heart's in the Highlands a chasing the deer; A chasing the wild deer, and following the roe, My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go. Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the north. The birth place of Valour, the country of Worth, Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.' The title of the tune is in Gaelic and translates as 'The Musket's Salute'.
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.
According to Burns, in his notes on the 'Museum', 'The first half-stanza of this song is old; the rest is mine'. Whilst Burns was the original author of many of the songs included by Johnson, he also spent a large amount of time revising and expanding already existing songs. In many cases all that remained was a title or possibly a few lines. Burns worked with these fragments to create a finished piece for the 'Museum'. The accompanying tune, 'Failte na miosg', appeared in James Oswald's 'Curious Collection of Scots Tunes' (1740) and, a number of years later, in his 'Caledonian Pocket Companion' (1759).
Volume III, song 259, page 268 - 'My heart's in the Highlands' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)