Annotation:Red Red Rose (2)

Back to Red Red Rose (2)

---

RED, RED ROSE [2]. AKA and see "Low Down in the Broom." Scottish, Air and Strathspey. D Major (Kerr): C Major (Howe). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Howe): AABB (Kerr). The title comes from Robert Burns' song "My Love is Like a Red Red Rose" which was originally intended by the poet to have been set to "Major Graham of Inchbrakie" in Gow's First Collection (1784), a tune that was called by John Glen (Early Scottish Melodies, 1900) a "palpable plagiarism of Marshall's "Miss Admiral Gordon's Strathspey". Glen finds publisher:

"George Thomson, in the index to the poetry of his second volume, second edition, states, "O my love's like, &c., Author unknown," and on page 89 gives the song under the title of "O, my Love's like the Red Red Rose. From an old MS in the Editor's possession, "Air--Wishaw's Favourite--composed by Mr. Marshall.

Later G.F. Graham replaced Marshall's melody and set Burns’s words to the old Scots air "Low Down in the Broom." Burns's song is based on an older, preexisting song, altered and improved by the poet.

O my love is like a red red rose,
That's newly sprung in June;
O my love is like a melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.
As fair thou art my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I,
And I will have thee still my dear
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Burns's song appears in Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, vol. 5 (1796, No. 402, p. 415-416), and included another version of song under the title "Old Set, Red red rose" set to the melody of "Mary Queen of Scots Lament" (song No. 404).

In 1881 “Red, Red Rose” became the march past of the British army’s Loyal North Lancashire Regiment (whose 1st and 2nd Battalions were made up of an amalgamation of the 47th West Lancashire Regiment and the 81st Loyal Lincoln Volunteers), apparently to match their emblem, the Red Rose of Lancashire (the origins of which were in the Wars of the Roses). The Loyals amalgamated again in 1970with the Lancashire Regiment to become the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment, keeping “Red, Red Rose” as their regimental march (David Murray, Music of the Scottish Regiments, Edinburgh, 1994; pg. 209). Also, prior to 1881, the 73rd Perthshire Regiment also played the tune as their march, although when they became the 2nd Battalion of The Black Watch, they switched to “Highland Laddie,” to match the 1st battalion.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Howe (1000 Jigs and Reels), c. 1867; p. 127. Kerr (Merry Melodies, vol. 3), c. 1880’s; No. 27, p. 6. Manson (Hamilton's Universal Tune Book), 1846, p. 177.

Recorded sources:

---

Back to Red Red Rose (2)