Annotation:Lord MacDonald (1)
X:1 T:Lord MacDonald [1] M:C L:1/8 R:Strathspey B:Stewart-Robertson - The Athole Collection (1884) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:D A<G|F<A Af/g/ a>fe>d|g>fe>d B>dB>A|F<A Af/g/ a>fe>d|e/f/g f/g/a e2d:| |:A|F<A A>B A>B A<F|G/G/G G2 G>AB>G|F<A A>B A>BA>F|G>BA>F D2D:| |:A/G/|F<A Af/g/ a>fe>d|g>fe>d B<d B>A|F<A Af/g/ a>fe>d|e/f/g e/g/a e2d:| |:g|f<a a>b a>ba>f|g/g/g g2 g>ab>g|f<a a>b a>ba>f|g<a f>g e2d:|
LORD MACDONALD [1]. AKA and see "Braes of Mar (1) (The)," "Johnny Will You Marry Me/Johnny Won't You Marry Me" "MacDonald's Rant," "Sir Alex MacDonald's Reel," "Strath Spray's Rant." Scottish, Strathspey or Reel. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Surenne): AABBCCDD (Athole, Gow, Skye). "Old Reel," noted the Gows in their Complete Repository Part 3 (1806), and indeed it was, for it appears in London music publisher John Walsh's Second Book of the Compleat Country Dancing Master (3rd Edition, 1735) as "Mac Donald's Rant" (also published in a subsequent edition of the volume in 1749), and in Walsh's Caledonian Country Dances, Book II (1743-44) under the title "Strath Spray's Rant," one of the earliest, if not the earliest, references to the strathspey. The tune was also entered in the 1741 McFarlane Manuscript (1741) of musician and writing master David Young as "Sir Alex MacDonald's Reel" (for which see "MacDonald's Rant").
Surenne (1851) gives the alternate title (?), "O Mither, Ont Bodie but the Duddy Blacksmith[1]," and says the version is an "old set."
- ↑ A song by William Wilson, published in 1881, fleshes out the title. It begins:
The blacksmith's auld an' sture an' stern,
His heart's as hard's his stiddy airn,
Oh, faither! dinna band yer bairn
To sic a surly blacksmith!
Refrain:
Oh, faither! ony body,
Ony body, ony body!
Oh, faither! ony body,
But a duddy blacksmith.
The frown's ay on his cau'kert mou',
The gloom's ay on his hingin' brow,
Twa fiery e'en red glowr'ing through,
I winna wed the blacksmith!