Annotation:I'll Make You Fain to Follow Me
Tune properties and standard notation
I'LL MAK(E) YOU/YE FAIN TO FOLLOW ME. AKA and see "Mak You Fain to Follow Me" (Shetland). Irish, English, Scottish; Jig or "Lively Song Tune" {Joyce} (6/8 time). England, Northumberland. C Major (Bremner, Gow, Joyce, Seattle): D Major (O'Farrell). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Gow, Joyce): AAB (Athole): AABB (Vickers): AABB' (Bremner): ABC (O'Farrell). An old tune published by Allan Ramsey in his Scots Musical Museum (No. 268) as the melody to an anonymous song that speaks a soldier's plea to a would-be lover, albeit unrequited. It was employed in Mitchell's ballad opera The Highland Fair: or, Union of the Clans (1731). John Glen (1891) said the earliest printing was in Robert Bremner's 1757 collection (p. 24). It appears to have been in circulation considerably earlier, for it appears in James Thomson's (1702) manuscript (Edinburgh?) and Glen (Early Scots Melodies, 1900) himself noted it was in the Margaret Sinkler manuscript (1710-twice, both untitled). The melody appears in the Gillespie Manuscript of Perth (1768) and William Vickers' 1770 Northumbrian manuscript. The title appears in Henry Robson's list of popular Northumbrian song and dance tunes ("The Northern Minstrel's Budget"), which he published c. 1800. "I'll Make You Fain" has been associated with country dances.
Source for notated version: "...from a MS. lent to Mr. Pigot by Miss O'Connell of Grena, Killarney" [Joyce].
Printed sources: Bremner (A Collection of Scots Reels), 1757; p. 24. Gow (Complete Repository), Part 1, 1799; p. 20. Joyce (Old Irish Folk Music and Songs), 1909; No. 795, p. 387. O'Farrell (Pocket Companion, vol. 1), c. 1805; p. 56 (appears as "Fain to Follow Me"). Seattle (Great Northern/William Vickers), 1987, Part 3; No. 487 (appears as "I'll Make Thee Be Fain To Follow Me"). Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; p. 140.
Recorded sources: Flying Fish FF358, Robin Williamson - "Legacy of the Scottish Harpers, vol. 1".
See also listing at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]