Volume V, song 427, pages 438 and 439 - 'The Boatie rows' -...
Volume V, song 427, pages 438 and 439 - 'The Boatie rows' - 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 weel may the boatie row, And better may she speed; And leesome may the boatie row, that wins the bairns bread. The boatie rows, the boatie rows, the boatie rows indeed; And weel may the boatie row, that win my bairns bread. O weel may the boatie row, and better may she speed; And leesome may the boatie row, that wins my bairns bread.' The bars of music at the top of this page belong to the second set of 'The Boatie rows' (song 426).
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.
This is the third and final set of 'The Boatie rows' to be included by Johnson in the 'Museum'. In each set the song is sung to a different tune (see songs 425 and 426). John Glen commented on all three versions in 'Early Scottish Melodies' (1900). Whilst on the topic of this particular tune, he merely referred to it as 'a wretched version of the tune as now sung'.
Volume V, song 427, pages 438 and 439 - 'The Boatie rows' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)