Annotation:My love's bonny when she smiles on me

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MY LOVE'S BONNY WHEN SHE SMILES ON ME. AKA and see "Flowers of Edinburgh (1)." Scottish, Slow Air (4/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. This tune may have been written (with the above title) in the 1740's by dancing master, composer and cellist James Oswald, although he laid no claim to it. Antiquarian John Glen (Early Scottish Melodies, 1900) says it appeared in 1742, referring to its publication in Oswald's A Second Collection of Curious Scots Tunes (1744, although dates vary somewhat). Soon after, in 1751, it was published by Oswald in his Caledonian Pocket Companion under the title "Flowers of Edinburgh," and the melody is popularly and widely known nowadays by that title in its reel-time setting. However, the first version of the song and tune with the title "The Flower of Edinburgh" appeared in the London-published periodical The Universal Magazine, April, 1749, the same year that it was printed in London music publisher John Johnson's Twelve Country Dances for the Harpsichord. Thus the "Flowers" title may have been from an English song set to the melody of Oswald's "My love's bonny when she smiles on me."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Alburger (Scottish Fiddlers and Their Music), 1983; Ex. 25, pg. 47.

Recorded sources: Redwing Music RWMCD 5410, Abby Newton - "Castles, Kirks and Caves" (2001).

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