Annotation:Cock Laird (The)
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COCK LAIRD, THE. AKA - "Cock-Laird fu' Caigie (A)." Scottish, Air (3/4 and 6/8 time). E Dorian. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part (Aird): AABBCCDDEEFF. A 'cock laird' is a person who owns a small landed property and cultivates it himself; a yeoman. The words to the song were printed with the tune in William Thomson's Orpheus Caledonius (1725), and begin:
A Cock-Laird fu' Caigie with Jenny did meet,
He Ha'st her and Kiss't her and ca'd her his sweet,
Gin, thou't ga'e alang wi' me Jenny Quo' he,
Thou's be mine ain Leman-Jo Jenny, Jenny.
Gin I gae alang with you ye ma'na fail,
To feed me na Croudie and good hackit Kail,
What needs a' this Vanity, Jenny Quo' he,
Is not Bannocks and dribly beards good meat for thee.
'Improvements' were later made in Thomson's lyric in, probably by Allan Ramsay, who included the song in his 'Tea-Table Miscellany (1724–1727).
Source for notated version:
Printed sources:
Aird (Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 5), Glasgow, 1797; No. 58, p. 23.
Johnson (Scots Musial Museum, vol. 2) [1], 1788; No. 148, p. 155.
Oswald (Caledonian Pocket Companion, Book 2), 1760; p. 33.
Thomson (Orpheus Caledonius), 1725; p. 26.
Recorded sources: