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Annotation:Bonny Dundee (3)
X:1 T:Adew Dundee [3] M:3/8 L:1/8 R:Air S:Skene Manuscript Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:Gmin F|DGG|G2G|F2G|Ac2|d2f|d2f|dcA|G2G|| dff|f2f|F2G|Ac2|dgg|g2g|gf=e|d3| dff|f2f|F2G|Ac2|d2f|d2f|dcA|G3||
BONNY DUNDEE [3]. AKA and see "Jockey's Escape from Dundee," "Adew Dundee." Scottish, English; Jig (6/8) or Air (6/4 time). A Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). This popular tune appears in several early 18th century ballad operas, according to Pulver (1923), such as John Gay's ballad opera The Beggar's Opera (1729), where it is parodied under the title "The charge is prepared." The ballad's subject is "The Jockey's Escape from Dundee," but the title is taken from the ending line, which runs "Adieu to bonny Dundee." The original song appears in the various editions of D'Urfy's Pills to Purge Melancholy, however, the air itself was first published in the second appendix to the 7th edition of 1686 (printed in 1688) of Playford's Dancing Master, the first edition of the series to by published by John's son Henry'. Kidson (1922) identifies the air as Scottish (but not the "Bonnets of Bonny Dundee" in Orpheus Caledonius, 1725-6); he earlier wrote for Grove's that he thought it likely a version of "Adew Dundie" of the Scottish Skene Manuscript (c. 1630). Chappell believed the melody was English, or "at least a spurious Scottish one," as John Glen in Early Scottish Melodies, 1900, writes, basing the claim on the appearance of the tune in Playford, "and because of some absurd and indelicate verses which had been written to the tune by some Grub Street scribbler, and inserted in D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy." Glen himself is of the opinion that the melody is truly Scottish, and conjectures it was brought south by courtiers of James II, who resided in Scotland prior to 1682, when he was Duke of York.
At the end of the 18th century the air was generally used for Hector MacNiel's song "Mary of Castlecary," which begins: "Saw ye my wee thing." See also the related jig version "Bonnie Dundee (1)" --curiously, O'Farrell prints the tune with the time signature in 6/8, but the notation in 6/4 time. A jig version appears in the music manuscript book of James Findlay, dated 1841. Findlay was originally from Penpont, Dumfrieshire, Scotland, but emigrated with his brothers to Australia, where he settled on a farm in the Upper Murray at Towong Upper. His manuscript was found in an old sea chest at the family homestead by his grand-daughter, Ada Findlay. MacNeil was certainly not the only one to set words to the melody, as, in 1825, Sir Walter Scott set words to a variant of the tune in honor of John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee (1648-1689) a Royalist commander in the English Civil War whose nickname was "Bonnie Dundee".
The tune is mentioned in an odd political tract entitled A Second Tale of a Tub: or the History of Robert Powell, the Puppet-Show-man (1715). A crowd of spectators was present for an organ performance, at the conclusion of which the various factions in the audience began to call for their favorite tunes. Amongst the crowed were:
a parcel of brawny fellows with Mantles about their shoulders, and blew caps about their heads. Next to them sate a company of clownish look’d Fellows with leather breeches, and hob nail’d shoes...the great booby hod nailed fellows whose breeches and lungs seem’d to be of the same leather, cried out for “Cheshire Rounds,” “Roger of Coverley,” “Joan’s Placket,” and “Northern Nancy.” Those with the Blew bonnets had very good voices, and split their Wems in hollowing out—“Bonny Dundee”—“Valiant Jockey,” “Sauny was a Bonny Lad,” and “’Twas within a Furlong of Edinburgh Town.”
