Annotation:On wi' the Tartan

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ON WI' THE TARTAN. Scottish, Air (6/8 time). B Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. A song with music by Robert Archibald (R.A.) Smith, published in his Scottish Minstrel, vol. 4. The pastoral love-song lyric by Hugh Ainslie (in Allan Cunningham's The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern, 1825) begins: p. 68

Can ye lo'e, my dear lassie, the hills wild and free,
Where the song of the shepherd gars a' ring wi' glee?
Or the steep rocky glens, where the wild falcons bide?
Then on wi' the tartan, an' fy let us ride!

At the second relief of Lucknow, India, the pipers of the 93rd Highlanders played "On wi' the Tartan." A more martial set of words was also set to the tune in the 19th century, beginning:

Ay! on wi' the tartan, the black plumes are wavin',
Nae longer oor flags noo in peace may be furled;
The war-cloud has fallen, oor foemen are ravin',
An' foremost against them the tartan is hurled.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Kerr (Merry Melodies, vol. 3); No. 247, p. 28.

Recorded sources:

See also listing at:
Hear a version played on the harmonica on youtube.com [1]

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