Annotation:Hey Ca' Thro'
HEY, CA' THROUGH. Scottish, Air (9/8 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part (Cole): AB (Gatherer): AABB (Kennedy). The song (whose title means ('Hey, work away') appears in John Johnson's Scots Musical Museum [1], vol. 4 (1792, p. 405). James Manson (1844) notes: "This air, with its song 'Up with the Carles of Dysart', never appeared in any collection before Johnson's Musical Museum." The lyric, which is usually attributed to Robert Burns, begins:
Up wi' carls of Dysart,............carls = old men
And the lads o' Buckh'ven
And the Kimmers o' Largo,......kimmer = gossips
And the lasses o' Leven.
Hey ca' thro' ca' thro'
For we hae mickle a do,
Hey ca' thro' ca' thro'
for we hae mickle a do.
John Glen (1900) could find no earlier appearance of the melody. The melody appears to be a Borders pipe tune. Matt Seattle sees some resemblance in John Walsh's "We are all Foresaken for want of Siller."