Annotation:Afton Water

The air used today for this 1786 pastoral song of Robert Burns is not the tune to which he originally set the song, but was substituted by a later editor who thought it more agreeable. The later air was composed in 1850 by Alexander Hume, of Edinburgh, a self-taught musician "who enjoyed an excellent reputation as a chorister and composer of psalms" (Neil, 1991). Burns' original setting was to the melody "The Yellow-Haired Laddie", and presented to Johnston, the editor of the Scots Musical Museum. Neil (1991) reports that it appears to have been part of a collection of 12 songs the poet first presented to an admirerer named Mrs. Stewart of Stair and Afton, and that the Mary named in the song was probably Mary Campbell (Highland Mary), who was courted by Burns at the time the song was written.