Annotation:Where will Our Good Man Lay? (1)

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WHERE/WHAR WAD OUR GUDMAN/BONNIE ANNIE LYE/LAYE? AKA and see "Red House," "Red House in Cardiff." Scottish, English; Air (2/4 or cut time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (most versions). The same tune ("Red House") is the ancestor to "John Peel." Johnson prints the song in the sixth volume of Scots Musical Museum (No. 324) as "Whar wad Bonnie Annie lie." Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, in notes to the Scots Musical Museum comments:

The more modern version of this song was said to have been composed on the beautiful Lady Anne Cochrane, Duchess of Hamilton, who, at an early age, died in childbed. She is still remembered by tradition as 'bonnie Annie;' but her portrait at Holyroodhouse, and a cast of her face at Hamilton, inspire no admiration of her charms. The former, indeed, is very ill done; and I have been told that the latter was taken after her death. Her Epithalamium and Eligy are to be found among the poems of Allan Ramsay.

Lady Anne Hamilton was the eldest of three beautiful daughters of the 4th Earl of Dundonald, and married in 1723 to James, 5th Duke of Hamilton. She died in the following year.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Aird (Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 1), 1778; No. 95. Gow (Vocal Melodies of Scotland), 1822; p. 34. Johnson (Scots Musical Museum, vol. 6), 1803, No. 324. Oswald (Caledonian Pocket Companion, vol. 2), 1760; p. 22. Smith (Scottish Minstrel, vol. 6), c. 1821, p. 48.

Recorded sources:

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