Annotation:Peer of Leith (The)

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PEER OF LEITH, THE. AKA - "Young Philander." Scottish, Slow Air (4/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). ABBC. Leith is the port city of Edinburgh. John Glen (Early Scots Melodies, 1900) finds the tune first appeared in Adam Craig's Collection of the Choicest of the Scots Tunes (c. 1730). Both words and music appeared a few years later in Thomson's Orpheus Caledonius vol. 2 (1733, Song 29). The lyric, from the view of an older individual, advises the younger of the fleeting nature of beauty. It goes:

Young Philander woo'd me lang,
But I was peevish, and forbad him,
I wadna tent his loving Sang,
But now I wish, I wish I had him:
Ilk Morning when I view my Glass,
The I perceive my Beauty going;
And when the Wrinkles frize the Face,
The we may bid adieu to wooing.

My Beauty, anes so much admir'd,
I find it fading fast, and flying;
My Chiiks, which Coral like appear'd,
Grow pale, the broken Blood decaying;
Ah! we may see our selves to be,
Like Summer Fruit that is unshaken;
When ripe, the soon fall down and die,
And by Corruption quickly taken.

Use then your Time, ye Virgins fair,
Employ your Day before 'tis evil;
Fifteen is a Season rare,
But five and twenty is the Devil.
Just when ripe, consent unto't,
Hug nae mair your lanely Pillow;
Women are like other Fruit,
They lose their Relish when too mellow.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Craig (Collection of the Choicest of the Scots Tunes), c. 1730. Johnson (Scots Musical Museum, vol. 3), 1792; No 222, pp. 231-232 (as "Young Philander"). McGibbon (Scots Tunes, book II), c. 1746; p. 38. Thomson (Orpheus Caledonius, vol. 2), 1733; Air 29.

Recorded sources:

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