Volume II, song 161, page 169 - 'Dumbarton's Drums' -...
Volume II, song 161, page 169 - 'Dumbarton's Drums' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)
Verse 1: 'Dumbarton's drums beat bonny O, When they mind me of my dear Johny O. How happy am I When my soldier is by, While he kisses and blesses his Annie O. 'Tis a soldier alone can delight me O, For his graceful look do invite me O: While guarded in his arms, I'll fear no wars alarms, Neither danger nor death shall e'er fright me O.'
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 'Museum', described this melody as 'the last of the West Highland airs'. Glen (1900) disputes this, however, claiming that 'we cannot see the least Highland character about it. Our opinion is that the tune was at first a Scots measure, and afterwards became the march of the regiment raised by the Earl of Dumbarton. It is still so used by the 1st Regiment, or Royal Scots.' Whatever its origins, the song and tune are known to have appeared in Ramsay's 'Tea-table Miscellany' (1724-7) and the 'Musick for the Scots Songs' (c. 1726), which accompanied it. The melody is considered to be very old and appeared, under various titles, in a number of seventeenth-century collections listed by Glen.
Volume II, song 161, page 169 - 'Dumbarton's Drums' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)