Annotation:My Heart is Sair for Somebody
X:2 T:My Heart is Sair for Somebody M:C L:1/8 R:Air Q:"Slowly" B:Cameron's Selection of Violin Music (Glasgow, 1859, p. 12) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:Bb F|(B3d) (f3d)|{d}(c3B) c2d2|B3B (d3f)|g4 (fd) zB| (B3d) {g}(f3d)|{d}(B3B)c2d2|B3G (G2F2)|f4 (dB) z2|| g4 (e3g)|f4 (dB) z2|e3c d3B|{A}c4 (AF3)| B3d c3e|d2g2 !fermata!f4|B3G (G2F2)|f4 dB||
MY HEART IS SAIR FOR SOMEBODY. AKA – "For the Sake of Somebody." AKA and see "Somebody (1)." Scottish, Fling and Air (whole time). G Major (Harding): B Flat Major (Cameron). Standard tuning (fiddle). AA (Harding): AB (Cameron). A song by Robert Burns (1759-96), printed by Johnson in the Scots Musical Museum (1796, No. 436), set to a version of the tune of Allan Ramsay's "For the Sake of Somebody" (see note for "annotation:For the Sake of Somebody" for more information on the original and Museum tunes). Ramsay's lyric was adapted by Burns, who borrowed two or three lines of the first stanza:
For the sake of Somebody,
For the sake of Somebody;
I could wake a winter night
For the sake of Somebody.
I am gaun to seek a wife,
I am gaun to buy a plaidy;
I have coft three stane o' woo'--
Carlin, is thy daughter ready?
Reworked by Burns as:
My heart is sair--I daurna tell--
My heart is sair for Somebody!
I could wake a winter night,
For the sake o' Somebody.
Oh-hon! for Somebody!
Oh-hey! for Somebody!
I could range the world around,
For the sake o’ Somebody.
Ye Powers that smile on virtuous love,
O, sweetly smile on Somebody!
Frae ilka danger keep him free,
And send me safe my Somebody!
O-hon! for Somebody!
O-hey! for Somebody!
I wad do-what wad I not?
For the sake o' Somebody.
The song is thought to predate Ramsay. See also the precursor tune from the Skene Manuscript (c. 1615), “Bone Jean Makis Meikill of Me.”
