Annotation:Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad

Back to Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad

---

WHISTLE AND I'LL COME TO YOU MY LAD. Scottish (originally Irish), Slow Jig. G Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. A 4/4 time version of the tune is "Fife Hunt (The)." The air was reputedly composed by fiddler John Bruce, born between 1700 and 1720 in Braemar. He took part in the rising of 1745, but was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle when Bonnie Prince Charlie was defeated, though his skill at the fiddle supposedly helped to mitigate his sentence. He later lived at Dumfries and there became acquainted with Robert Burns before his death in 1785. Gow (1806) identifies the tune as “Irish.”

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: The British Minstrel and Musical and Literary Miscellany, vol. II, 1843 45, p. 169. Carlin (The Gow Collection), 1986; No. 380. Crosby (The Caledonian Musical Repository), 1811; p. 144. Crosby (The Irish Musical Repository), 1808; p. 284. Goulding (Instructions for the Fife), 1790; p. 30. Gow (Complete Repository, Part 3), 1806, p. 12. Graham, pp. 244 245. Johnson (The Scots Musical Museum), 1787 1803; vol. II, No. 106 and vol. VI, No. 560. Kerr (Merry Melodies, vol. 1), c. 1880, p. 33. Moffat (The Minstrelsy of Ireland), 1897; p. 280. Murphy (Collection of Irish Airs...), 1809 or 1820; p. 18. O'Farrell, 1797-1800; p. 19. O'Neill (Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies), 1903; No. 391. Shield (The Poor Soldiers), 1782?; pp. 3 5, 8.

Recorded sources:

---