Annotation:I'll never leave thee
X:1 T:I’ll never leave thee M:3/4 L:1/8 B:Alexander Stuart – “Musick for Allan Ramsay’s Collection part 5” B:(Edinburgh, c. 1724, pp. 108-109) F:https://digital.tcl.sc.edu/digital/collection/rbc/id/3048 Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:D V:1 (D>E) F2 (F>A)|F3E (F/E/D)|E2 B2 (AF)|E4 D2|(D>E) E2 (F>A)| F3E (F/E/D)|(EF) (dB) (AF)|E4 D2::d3c (B/c/d)|(c/d/e) (dc)(B>A)| B3A (B/A/F)|d3e f2|B2 (AB) (FB)|A3 (FE>D)|(EF) (dB)(AF)|E4 D2:| V:2 clef = bass D,4 D,,2|D,2A,,2D,2|A,2G,2 F,D,|A,2A,,2D,2|F,E, D,2 D,,2| D,2A,2 D,F,|A,2 G,2 F,2|A,2 A,,2 D,2::B,,4 G,,2|A,,4 E,2| G,2F,2D,2|F,4 D,2|G,2F,2D,2|F,2D,2 A,,2|A,2 G,2 D,2|A,2 A,,2 D,2:|
I'LL NEVER LEAVE THEE. Scottish, English; Slow Air (3/4 time). England, Northumberland. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Mulhollan): AABB (McGibbon): AABBCCDDEEFF (Oswald). The title appears in Henry Robson's list of popular Northumbrian song and dance tunes ("The Northern Minstrel's Budget"), which he published c. 1800. The melody appears in Alexander Stuart's Musick for Allan Ramsay’s Collection part 5 (Edinburgh, c. 1724), William Thomson's Orpheus Caledonius (1725), Edinburgh fiddler and writing master David Young's Bodleian Manuscript (in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, inscribed "A Collection of the Newest Country Dances Performed in Scotland written at Edinburgh by D.A. Young, W.M. 1740"), and is included in the [James] Gillespie Manuscript of Perth (1768). "I'll Never Leave Thee" also appears in Aberdeen dancing master Francis Peacock's Fifty Favourite Scottish Airs (1776). For more on Peacock, see Graham's note below.
Why should thy cheek be pale,
Shaded with sorrow's veil?
Why should'st thou grieve me?
I will never, never leave thee.
'Mid my deepest sadness,
'Mid my gayest gladness,
I am thine, believe me;
I will never, never leave thee.
A setting was composed by Joseph Haydn [Hob. Xxxia:205]. In the Scots Musical Museum poet Robert Burns remarks:
This is another of Crawford's songs, but I do not think in his happiest manner. What an absurdity, to join such names as Adonis and Mary together!
George Farquhar Graham (Songs of Scotland, 1848) writes of the song:
This beautiful air is unquestionably old. Sibbals (Chronicle of Scottish Poetry, vol. iii, p. 275) is of the opinion that the modern version is a little corrupted, and that the original air was intended to be sung to one of Wedderburne's Spiritual Ballads (before 1549) beginning:
Ah! my love! leif me not!
leif me not! leif me not!
Ah! my love! leif me not!
Thus mine alone!
Although Mr. Stenhouse agrees in this opinion, we doubt whether its truth can be established by any existing evidence. (See our Note, vol. ii, p. 29). Mr. Stenhouse's words are:--"This (Sibbald's) opinion appears to be correct, for this identical tune is mention in Geddes' 'Saint's Recreation', written in 1673, as appears from the approbations of the Rev. William Rait, and the Rev. William Colvill, Primer of the College of Edinburgh, both of which are dated August, 1673. This work was afterwards printed in 1683. Several of Geddes' pious songs are directed to be sung to popular tunes, and he vindicates the practice in the following words:--'I have the precedent of some of the most pious, grave, and zealous divines in the kingdom, who, to very good purpose have composed godly songs to the tunes of such old songs as these, The bonnie broom, I'll never leave thee, We'll all go to pull the hadder, and such like, without any challenge or disparagement.'." See Museum Illustrations, vol. i, pp. 93, 94. In Mr. William Dauney's Dissertation p. 38 there is a longer quotation from Geddes. The following passage of that quotation is too curious to be omitted:--"It is alleged by some, and that not without some colour of reason, that many of our ayres or tunes are made by good angels, but the letters or lines of our songs by devils. We choose the part angelical, and leave the diabolical." The set of the air which we publish is chiefly taken from that of Francis Peacock, No. 15 of his "Fifty Favourite Scotch Airs," dedicated to the Earl of Errol, and printed in London about 1776. It is, in our opinion, much superior to the ordinary versions, which have been corrupted by the insertion of embellishments altogether destructive of the beauty and simplicity of the ancient melody. Peacock was a dancing master in Aberdeen, and a good player on the violin and violoncello. As the words usually sung to the air do not conform to it in their accentuation, and require besides the addition to the second strain, at variance with the rhythm, we have substituted other words written to the work by a friend of the publishers.
A version of "I'll never leave thee" was used as the indicated air for "Highland Mary" in William Christie Jr.'s Traditional Ballad Airs, vol. 2 (1881, p. 166). Christie, an Aberdeenshire cleric and song collector (and son of fiddler-composer William Christie Sr.) collected only one verse to "I'll never leave thee":
I'll never leave thee, nor yet forsake thee,
I'll never travel as I have done;
With thee I'll tarry, whom I do marry,
Till the last sand of my glass is run.
