Volume I, song 009, page 10 - 'Saw ye Johnnie cummin, quo' she' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)

Verse 1: 'Saw ye Johnnie cummin, quo' she, Saw ye Johnnie cummin, O saw ye Johnnie cummin, quo' she; Saw ye Johnnie cummin, Wi' his blue bonnet on his head, And his doggie runnin', quo' she; and his doggie runnin'?' 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 was fond of this song, as his notes on it reveal: 'This song for genuine humour in the verses, and lively originality in the air, is unparalleled. I take it to be very old'. Glen (1900) informs us that this song appeared in print before its inclusion in the 'Museum', in Robert Bremner's 'Thirty Scots Songs' (1757), page 6, under the name of 'Fee him, Father, Fee him'. It was also, however, printed around ten years earlier in John Walsh's 'A Collection of Original Scotch Songs, with a Thorough Bass to each Song for the Harpsichord', part iii, and was called ''Saw ye John a coming', a Scotch song'.

Collection

Scots Musical Museum

Inventory Number

4503206

Title

Volume I, song 009, page 10 - 'Saw ye Johnnie cummin, quo' she' - 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