Volume II, song 145, pages 151 and 152 - 'The Wedding-day'...
Volume II, song 145, pages 151 and 152 - 'The Wedding-day' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)
Verse 1: 'One night as young Colin lay musing in bed, With a heart full of love, and a vapourish head, To wing the dull hours, and his Sorrows allay, Thus sweetly he sung of his wedding day. What would I give for a wedding day! Who would not wish for a wedding day! Wealth and ambition, I'd toss ye away, With all you can boast, for a wedding-day.'
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.
During his researches for 'Early Scottish Melodies' (1900), Glen was unable to find this particular tune in any collections prior to James Oswald's 'Caledonian Pocket Companion' (1759). Despite this, Glen believes it to be an earlier tune, 'as it is one of the airs in Ramsay's Pastoral of the 'Gentle Shepherd'. The song to which it is adapted commences, 'How shall I be sad when a husband I Hae,' so it must have been well known to Allan Ramsay at least a quarter of a century before it appeared in Oswald's publication.'
Volume II, song 145, pages 151 and 152 - 'The Wedding-day' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)