Annotation:Jockie's Fu' and Jennie's Fain

Back to Jockie's Fu' and Jennie's Fain

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JOCKIE'S FU' (DRUNK) AND JENNIE'S FAIN (EAGER). Scottish, Air (cut time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The bawdy title, from the 18th century, appears in the ballad opera The Highland Fair (1731), in Craig's Select Tunes (1730) and in David Young's McFarlane MS. (vol. 3, c. 1740, No. 36). Words to the melody appear in Allen Ramsay's Tea Table Miscellany, and begin:

Jockie's fow and Jennie's fain,
Jenny was nae ill to gain;
She was couthy, he was kind,
And thus the wooer tell'd his mind.
Jenny, I'll nae mair be nice,
Gie me love at ony price;
I winna prig for red or whyt,
Love alane can gie delight.

19th century antiquarian William Stenhouse noted that Ramsay dropped the older stanzas after this (the more objectionable ones) and substituted ones of his own crafting. The song "The Reel of Tullochgorum" is said to have taken its subject from this older song.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Johnson (The Scots Musical Museum, vol. 4), 1792; p. 395.

Recorded sources:

See also listing at:
See a standard notation transcription of the melody from David Young's MacFarlane Manuscript (c. 1740) [1]

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