Annotation:Highland Harry

Tune properties and standard notation

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HIGHLAND HARRY. AKA and see "Blue Bonnet (The)," "Highlander's Farewell to Ireland (2) (The)." Scottish, Strathspey. A Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. A melody popular with both fiddlers and bagpipers. It appears in Neil Stewart's Reels (1762) and in David Young's Gillespie Manuscript of Perth (1768) under the title "Highlander's Farewell to Ireland (1) (The)". It was this melody to which poet Robert Burns set his song "Highland Harry," which appeared in Johnson's Scots Musical Museum of 1790. Burns based his song on an older one that he picked up from "an old woman in Dumblane," although he reworked much of the material, save for the chorus "My Harry was gallant and gay."

The original song, remarks Peter Buchan, describes the affection between Harry Lunsdale, the second son of a Highland gentleman, and Mrs Jeanie Gordon, daughter to the Laird of Knockespock, in Aberdeenshire. "The lady was married to her cousin, Habichie Gordon, a son of the Laird of Rhynie; and some time after her former lover having met her and shaken her hand, her husband drew his sword in anger, and lopped off several of Lumsdale's fingers, which Highland Harry took so much to heart that he soon after died'. Burns' reworking gives it a political cast, and is among his 'Jacobite' songs. It begins:

Oh for him back again, oh for him back again
I wid gie a' Knockhaspie's land for Hieland Harry back again

My Harry was a gallant gay, fu' stately rade he o'er the plain
But noo they've sent him far away, we'll never see him back again

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Martin (Traditional Scottish Fiddling), 2002; p. 78.

Recorded sources:

See also listing at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]

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Tune properties and standard notation