Volume VI, song 537, page 556 - 'What ails the lasses at me' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)

Verse 1: 'I am a young bachelor winsome a farmer by rank and degree and few I see gang out mair handsome to kirk or to market than me./ I've outsight and insight and credit, And frae ony eelist I'm free I'm weel enough boarded and bedded, What ails a' the lasses at me.' 'Winsome' means comely and 'eelist' means the desire to obtain things not easily obtained. 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. According to John Glen (1900), this comic song was apparently written by the poet, Alexander Ross (1699-1784). Two other fine songs by Ross are also included in 'The Scots Musical Museum'. Glen writes that the song was first published in the poet's own works in Aberdeen in 1768, with directions that it should be sung to a melody called 'An' the Kirk wad let me be'. In the 'Museum', however, the publisher James Johnson has included another melody for Ross's song. The tune supplied by Johnson does not appear in any earlier Scottish song collection, and Glen believes it is most likely an Irish air.

Collection

Scots Musical Museum

Inventory Number

4503732

Title

Volume VI, song 537, page 556 - 'What ails the lasses at me' - 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

- 129 x 211 mm