Annotation:Stay a Wee Bit Bonny Lad

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X:1 T:Stay a Wee Bit, Bonnie Lad M:C L:1/8 S:Bruce & Stokoe – Northumbrian Minstelsy Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:D DFAF dF E2|DFAF BABd|GeFd eFEF|DFAd BABd:| adab afdf|adab abaf|adab afdf|dABA dABd| adab afdf|adab abaf|gbaf edef|dABA dABd||

STAY A WEE BIT, BONNIE LAD. AKA and see "Stay and take your breeches wi' ye (2)." English, Reel (whole time). England, Northumberland. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. The tune is set in both instrumental and song versions. One double-entendre verse (where the fiddle represents the vagina^[1]) goes:

Well I loo my bonny lad,
we'el the playing o' the fiddle;
Weel his playing neet or day,
Best when playing about the middle.

Northumbrian musician William Vickers had a nearly identical version of the tune in his 1770 music manuscript under the title "Stay and take your breeches wi' ye (2)."

Additional notes

Printed sources : - Bruce & Stokoe (Northumbrian Minstrelsy), 1882; p. 149. The Northumbrian Pipers Pocket-Green Book (1993).

Recorded sources : - Trailer LER 2030, High Level Ranters - "High Level" (1971). Horseplay - "Roughshod."

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↑ Vic Gammon (Ed.), Chapt. 2 "Such a Merry Tune: Music, Musical Instruments and Dance as Sexual Symbols," Desire, Drink and Death in English Folk and Vernacular Song 1600-1900, 2007.

[1] Vic Gammon (Ed.), Chapt. 2 "Such a Merry Tune: Music, Musical Instruments and Dance as Sexual Symbols," Desire, Drink and Death in English Folk and Vernacular Song 1600-1900, 2007.

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