Annotation:Good Night and God Be with You (1)
Back to Good Night and God Be with You (1)
GOOD NIGHT AND GOD BE WITH YOU. English, Scottish; Air (cut time). C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Playford): AABBCCDDEEFF (Oswald). The tune was first published in London in Henry Playford's Scotch Tunes (1700). It was used as the vehicle for a song in the ballad opera Highland Fair (1731), and it was entered into the music manuscript collection of Scottish musician James Gillespie (The Gillespie Manuscript of Perth, 1768) and the music copybook of Thomas Molyneaux (Nova Scotia, 1788).
James Johnson prints the song, penned by Robert Burns, in his Scots Musical Museum, vol. 6 (1803, Song 600, p. 620). The first few stanzas go:
The night is my departing night,
The morn's the day I maun awa,
There's no a friend or fae o' mine,
But wishes that I were awa.
What I hae done for lack o' wit
I never never can reca'
I trust ye're a' my friends as yet,
Gude night and joy be wi' you a'.
Adieu! a heart-warm, fond adieu!
Dear brothers of the mystic tye!
Ye favour'd, ye enlighen'd Few,
Companions of my social joy!
Tho' I to foreign lands must hie,
Pursuing Fortun's slidd'ry ba',
With melting heart, and brimful eye,
I'll mind you still, tho' far awa'
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Aird (Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Air vol. 2), 1785; p. 74. Johnson (Scots Musical Museum vol. 6), 1803; p. 620. Oswald (Caledonian Pocket Companion, vol. 4), 1760; p. 32. Henry Playford (A Collection of Original Scotch-Tunes (Full of the Highland Humours) for the violin), London, 1700; No. 8, p. 4.
Recorded sources: