Annotation:I Saw My Love Come Passing By Me
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I SAW MY LOVE COME PASS(ING) ME BY. AKA - "Duchess of Northumberland's Delight." English, Reel. England, Northumberland. G Major (most versions): A Major (Cocks). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (Cocks, Stokoe): AABBBCC (Raven): AABBCCDDEEFF (Peacock). One of the core tunes of Northumbrian piping repertoire. J. Collingwood Bruce & John Stokoe (1882) remarK: "This tune has at some remote period been used for a song, of which now only a fragment in known—
I saw my love come passing by me,
But shame to the hade, she ne'er cam' nigh me.
In some very old copies it is marked as the 'Duchess of Northumberland's Delight'--an allusion, probably, to Elizabeth, the first Duchess, who (with her husband) by her patronage and support greatly encouraged the use of the pipes in the country."
Matt Seattle finds an ancestral tune in an older Scottish melody called "Put on thy Smock on a Monday/Put on Your Sark on Monday" (there are various spellings), which can be found in lute manuscripts. He says, "A clear continuity of musical development can be traced through the most significant local versions in the William Dixon manuscript (1733), Peacock's Tunes (c. 1805) and here in the Clough collection (early 20th century)" [1]. Scottish versions can also be found as "Drunken Wives of Carlisle (The)" (Robert Riddell) and "Gi'e the Mawking mair o't."
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Cocks (Tutor for the Northumbrian Half-Long Bagpipes), 1925; No. 4, p. 8. Peacock (Peacock’s Tunes), c. 1805; No. 23, p. 8. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 183. Bruce & Stokoe (Northumbrian Minstrelsy), 1882; p. 147.
Recorded sources: Kyloe Records Kyloe 103, Chris Ormston - "Time Out of Mind" (2003). Real World Records – CDRW62, Kathryn Tickell - "The Gathering" (1997. Various artists). Smithsonian Folkways SFW40473_106, Anthony Robb - "Northumberland Rant: Traditional Music from the Edge of England" (1999). Topic Records TSCD529, Cut & Dry Band - "The Wind in the Reeds : The Northumbrian Smallpipes" (2001).
See also listing at:
See Tom Clough's pipe transcription at the FARNE Archive [2]