Annotation:Her absence will not alter me
X:1 T:Her absence will not alter me M:C| L:1/8 R:Air Q:"Slow" S:McGibbon - Scots Tunes, Book 1, p. 4 (c. 1746) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G GA | B2 (AG) G3e | (d<B)T(AG) E2 (DE) | (GA)(Bc) (d>eg)G | E2 (G>A)G2 :| |: (gf) | Te3d (ef)(ga) | (ba)(ge) d3d | (g>ab)a (ba)(ge) | g2 d>e d2 (ga) | (ba)(ge) T3e | (dB)(AG) E2 (DE) | G>AB>c d>egG | E2 (G>A) G2 :||
HER ABSENCE WILL NOT ALTER ME. Scottish, Slow Air (cut time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The air appears in a several 18th and early 19th century publications and musician's manuscript collections, including John Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, vol. 1 (1787, p. 72), David Sime's Edinburgh Musical Miscellany (1793, pp. 356-358), and Edward Riley's Flute Melodies, vol. 2 (New York, 1817, p. 42). The first verse, from the Scots Musical Museum, goes:
Though distant far from Jessy's charms,
I stretch in vain my longing arms,
Though parted by the deeps of sea,
Her absence shall not alter me.
Though beauteous nymphs I see around,
A Chloris, Flora, might be found,
Or Phyllis with her roving eye;
Her absence shall not alter me.
Allen Cunningham (The Songs of Scotland, 1825) says:
This is a favourite song with our Scottish mariners; and their affection is very natural. The hero indeed speculates on the inconstancy of a sailor's affection: he imagines woman to be all truth, and a mariner to be all levity. He has no suspicion that while he "is on India's burning coast" his love may forsake him; and he labours to assure the world that he is unchangeable and immutable.
