Volume IV, song 355, page 366 - 'O, for ane and twenty Tam'...
Volume IV, song 355, page 366 - 'O, for ane and twenty Tam' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)
Verse 1 (to the tune of 'The Moudiewort'): 'An' O, for ane an' twenty, Tam! And hey, sweet ane & twenty, Tam! I'll learn my kin a rattlin' sang, An' I saw ane an' twenty, Tam. They snool me sair, and haud me down, An' gar me look like bluntie, Tam; But three short years will soon wheel roun', An' then comes ane an' twenty, Tam.' Chorus: 'An' O, for ane an' twenty, Tam! And hey, sweet ane & twenty, Tam! I'll learn my kin a rattlin' sang, An' I saw ane an' twenty, Tam.' The word 'snool' means 'to subdue' or 'to dispirit'. 'Bluntie' means a 'stupid fellow'.
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.
Glen (1900) writes that the name given to this melody, 'The Moudiewort', was almost certainly the tune's original name. 'Moudiewort' has a number of definitions, including a mole; a short, dark person with a profusion of hair; and is also a term applied to children. Burns wrote the comic lyrics for this air in 1791. Written from the girl's viewpoint, the lyrics tell of her yearning to marry her lover, thus going against the wishes of her family who want her to marry for money. As the girl has some property of her own, however, she will soon be able to legally assert her economic independence from her oppressive family, once she reaches the age of twenty-one. This conflict between marrying for love or money was a popular theme in much eighteent-century literature.
Volume IV, song 355, page 366 - 'O, for ane and twenty Tam' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)