Volume V, song 421, page 434 - 'Out over the Forth, &c.' -...
Volume V, song 421, page 434 - 'Out over the Forth, &c.' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)
'Out over the Forth, I look to the North, But what is the North and its Highlands to me; The South nor the East, gie ease to my breast, The far foreign land, or the wide rolling sea: But I look to the West when I gae to rest, That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be. For far in the West lives he I lo'e best, The man that is dear to my babie and me.'
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.
Although Johnson makes no mention of it here, this song is generally considered to have been written by Burns. Whilst Burns wrote many of the songs included in the 'Museum', he was also responsible for collecting and revising a large number of existing songs for inclusion. John Glen, in 'Early Scottish Melodies' (1900), noted that the melody accompanying 'Out over the Forth, &c.' was thought to be a Niel Gow composition entitled, 'Mr Charles Graham's Welcome Home'.
Volume V, song 421, page 434 - 'Out over the Forth, &c.' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)