Annotation:My Dearie an thou die

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MY DEARIE AN THOU DIE. AKA - "My Deary, If Thou Die," "My Dearie, If Thou Dee," "My Dearie an Ye Die." Scottish, Air (2/4 time). C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). The melody is related to "Lea Rig (The)" and "My Own Kind Dearie." Bruce Olson finds it listed (as "My Dearie if Thou Die") in the Leyden Lyra Viol Manuscript from around 1692 (p./No. 12); somewhat later, it can be found in Alexander Stuart's Musick for Allan Ramsey's Collection of Scots Songs (1724) and in the Adam Craig collection (1730) in a march-like setting.

The song appears in Ramsey's ballad opera The Devil of a Duke, or Trapolin's Vagaries (1733), William Thomson's Orpheus Caledoneus, vol. 2 (1733, albeit with a different air), Sime's Edinburgh Miscellany (1793, albeit with a different air) and Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, vol. 1 (1787). There was an old and simple song, each verse ending with the line "My dearie, an thou die," that was reworked by Robert Crawford and appears in Ramsey's Tea-table Miscellany. The same song, with a different air was included in Thomson's Orpheus Caledoneus (which may be related to a tune from the Skene Manuscript, c. 1620, called "Sillie Soul alace"). Crawford's lyric begins:

Love never more shall give me pain,
My fancy's fix'd on thee;
Nor ever maid my heart shall gain,
My Peggie, if thou dee.

Thy beauties did such pleasure give,
Thy love's so true to me;
Without thee I shall never live,
My dearie, if thou dee.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Aird (Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs), vol. II, 1785; No. 190, p. 70.

Recorded sources:

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