Annotation:Andrew and His Cuttie Gun (1)

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ANDREW AND HIS CUTTIE GUN. Scottish, Air (4/4 time). G Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCCDD. A 'cuttie gun' was a 'pop-gun', a toy, used by Burns as a reference to the male organ. The melody is a variant of "Boyne Water (1)" family of tunes (see discussions for "annotation:Boyne Water (1)," "Cameronian Rant (The)," "The Wee, Wee German Lairdie"). The song appears in Allan Ramsay's Tea Table Miscellany of 1740, and an amended version can be found in David Herd's Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs (1776). It was reworked by Robert Burns for his Merry Muses of Cealedonia (1798), albeit changed from a tavern setting to rather bawdy lyrics. Burns did not include a tune (which he described as "the work of a master"), but referenced one in the Scots Musical Museum (1797, No. 180), where it appears as a slow strathspey. Bruce Olson says the tune was published c. 1754. Burns' bawdy lyric version (he also wrote a sanitized one) from Merry Muses, goes:

Chorus:
Blythe, blythe, blythe was she,
Blythe was she but and ben,
An' weel she lo'ed it in her neive,
But better when it slippit in.

Verses:
When a' the lave gaed tae their bed,
And I sat up to clean the shoon,
O wha think ye cam jumpin' ben,
But Andrew and his cutty gun.

Or e'er I wist he laid me back,
And up my gamon to my chin,
And ne'er a word to me he spak,
But liltit oot his cutty gun.

The bawsent bitch she left the whalps,
And hunted roond us at the fun,
As Andrew fodge'd wi' his airse,
And fir'd me the cuttie gun.

O some delights in cuttie stoup,
And some delights in cuttue-mun,
But my delight's an airselins coup,
Wi' Andrew an' his cuttie gun.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Carlin (The Gow Collection), 1986; No. 3. Gow (The First Collection of Niel Gow's Reels), 1784 (revised 1801); p. 20.

Recorded sources:

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