Annotation:My heart was so free

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MY HEART WAS SO FREE. AKA and see "Pray fair one be kind." English, Air (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. The tune appears under the "My Heart..." name in John Gay's (1685-1732) Beggar's Opera (1729, Act 1, No. 27, Air 15). Frank Kidson (1922) admitted he was not able to trace the air, however, it is now known to be "Pray fair one be kind", attributed to composer Richard Leveridge. It had appeared in the Restoration-era comedy as Captain Plume's song in The Recruiting Officer by George Farquhar some twenty years earlier.

Gay's lyric, sung by the protagonist McHeath, begins:

My heart was so free, it roved like a bee,
'Till Polly my passion requited.
My heart was so free, it roved like a bee,
'Till Polly my passion requited;
I sipp'd each flow'r, I changed every hour,
I sipp'd each flow'r, I changed every hour,
But here every flow'r is united.
But here every flow'r is united.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 54.

Recorded sources: Hyperion Records, The Broadside Band - "Gay: The Beggar's Opera."



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