Volume I, song 076, page 77 - 'O Saw ye my Father' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)

Verse 1: 'O saw ye my Father, or saw ye my Mother, Or saw ye my true love John. I saw not your Father, I saw not your Mother, But I saw your love John.' 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. Robert Riddell's commentary on this song left no notes but rather an alternative last verse which was a little more risquǸ, 'When being thus deceived, she sighed, she pray'd, she raved, / O had I my Johnie in my arms / The boniest gray cock that ever crew at noon / Should rob him of his charms'. It is, however, written in an unknown hand. There is the suggestion that this song has an English origin, but this remains largely unsubstantiated.

Collection

Scots Musical Museum

Inventory Number

4503271

Title

Volume I, song 076, page 77 - 'O Saw ye my Father' - 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