Annotation:Over the Hills and Far Away (2)
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OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY [2]. AKA and see "Wind has blawn my plaid away (The)." English, Scottish, American; March, Air and Country Dance Tune (2/4 time). England, Northumberland. USA, New England. G Major (Aird, Johnson): D Major (most versions). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Johnson, Plain Brown): AABB (most versions): AABBCCDD (Aird). The melody has recognizably been in use in the 20th century for the nursery rhyme "Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son," and was probably written in England around 1700 according to one source. It's appearance in Northumbrian musician Henry Atkinson's 1694 music manuscript collection [1] argues for an older date. Frank Kidson (1922) identifies the tune as Scottish and says one early version is called "The wind has blawn my plaid away." As a song air it was popular enough some twenty or thirty years later to have been parodied in air 16 of John Gay's Beggar's Opera (1729, where it appears under the title "Were I laid on Greenland's coast", Air XVI), and had been earlier included by D'Urfey in Pills to Purge Melacholy (1709) and in the play The Recruiting Officer (1706). In fact, it was included, sometimes under different titles, in several ballad operas in the 18th century (Pulver, 1923), as it later was in Andrew Barton's ballad opera The Disappointment (New York, 1767) as the melody for air 8. The melody was printed as a country dance in the 'Second Volume of the Dancing Master, 2nd edition (London: Printed by W..., Church, 1714) and again in Walsh's Country Dancing Mater, book II (1719). It was often played by the English during the French Wars of 1793-1815, "especially as loth-to-depart, one of the tunes traditionally used when a regiment left its cantonments" (Winstock, 1970; pg. 38).
"Over the Hills and Far Away" enjoyed widespread popularity throughout Britain. It appears in many musicians' manuscripts, including those of J.S.J. Jackson (Wyresdale, Lancashire, 1823), Wolsnoume (Lancashire, 1798), John Moore (Tynesdale, 1841), and James Winder (Wyresdale, Lancashire, 1835). In Northumberland it is listed, although one of the "missing tunes," in William Vickers' 1770 large music manuscript collection. The title appears in Henry Robson's list of popular Northumbrian song and dance tunes ("The Northern Minstrel's Budget"), which he published about 1800.
As with many popular English airs, it was transported to Colonial America where it shows up in several musicians' copybooks. Clement Weeks' (Greenland, New Hampshire) copied it into his manuscript collection of country dances in 1783, the figures of which reappear in the English publication Twenty-Four Country Dances for the Year 1795 (London, T. Dodd, 1795). American musician Henry Beck similarly included it in his German flute MS of 1786, and it appears in the music copybook of Henry Livingston, Jr. The latter purchased the estate of Locust Grove, Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1771 at the age of 23. In 1775 he was a Major in the 3rd New York Regiment, which participated in Montgomery's invasion of Canada in a failed attempt to wrest Montreal from British control. An important land-owner in the Hudson Valley, and a member of the powerful Livingston family, Henry was also a surveyor and real estate speculator, an illustrator and map-maker, and a Justice of the Peace for Dutchess County. He was also a poet and musician, and presumably a dancer, as he was elected a Manager for the New York Assembly's dancing season of 1774-1775, along with his 3rd cousin, John Jay, later U.S. Chief Justice of Governor of New York. O'Neill prints it in Waifs and Strays (1922), along with the words:
Gay Robin was a piper young,
and many an air he played and sung
But sweetest far the love fraught lay
'Over the hills and far away'
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Aird (Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. II), 1785; No. 29, p. 11. Callaghan (Hardcore English), 2005; p. 45. Doyle (Plain Brown Tune Book), 1997; p. 33. Johnson (The Kitchen Musician No. 14: Songs, Airs and Dances of the 18th Century), 1997; p. 13. Kerr (Merry Melodies, vol. 1), c. 1880's; No. 9, p. 26. Kerr (Merry Melodies, vol. 3); No. 420, p. 47. O'Neill (Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody), 1922; No. 55. Oswald (Caledonian Pocket Companion, Book 7), 1760; p. 23. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 55.
Recorded sources: