Annotation:Bonnie Lassie Take a Man

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BONNIE LASSIE TAKE A MAN. Scottish, Air (cut time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCCDD. "Bonnie lassie take a man" is Air X in Joseph Mitchell's ballad opera The Highland Fair; or, Union of the Clans (1731), "With the musick, which wholly consists of select Scots tunes, prefix'd to each song." Mitchell's song goes:

Think, my Fairest, how Delay,
Danger every Moment brings.
Present Time will fly away,
Time, that's ever on its Wings.

Doubting and Suspense at best,
Lovers late Repentance cost.
Then let's, eager to be blest,
Seize Occasion, ere 'tis lost.

Unfortunately, Mitchell's opera has been called "a poor piece of work," with "no intrinsic value," save for its "endeavor to exploit the Lowland airs and to arouse interest in the romance of Scottish history" (Allardyce Nicoll, A History of Early Eighteenth Century Drama 1700-1750, 1925, p. 250).

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Oswald (Caledonian Pocket Companion Book 11), c. 1760; p. 128.

Recorded sources:

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