Annotation:He's aye kissing me (2)
X:138 T:He's Aye a Kissing Me [2]. THO4.138 A:England; London O: M:2/4 L:1/8 Z:vmp. Peter Dunk 2010/11.from a transcription by Fynn Titford-Mock 2007 B:Thompson's Compleat Coll. of 200 Favourite Country Dances Vol.IV. 1773-80 Q:1/4=140 K:A E|A>BAc|ecec|B>cBd|f3 (f/g//a//)|A>BAc|ec (ef/g/)|afec|A3:| |:c|B>ABe|cAAc|B>ABe|(c2A)c|B>ABe|c>^dea|gef>g|He2(e/d/c/B/)| A>BAc|ecec|B>cBd|f3 (f/g//a//)|A>BAc|ecfa|B>ABe|A3:|
HE'S AYE KISSING ME [2]. AKA and see "Sandy o'er the Lea (2)." English, Scottish; Air (2/4). A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. The melody appears in the c. 1770 music manuscript collection of musician William Clark of Lincoln, where "Sandy o'er the Lea" is given as a second title. Allan Cunningham, in his Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern (1825, p. 248) explains:
"Sandy o'er the Lea" is one of those compositions which the Muses of the south and the north have agreed to amend, repair, parody, and vary till all the marks of nationality are effaced, and every attempt to localize it is confounded. I have no doubt, however, that the original groundwork of the song is Scottish. I have seen, indeed, a song of a much older stamp, and I may add, of a far grosser character than this; and I believe, as they have many lines in common, that the ruder version is the oldest. It was decidedly of Scottish growth, and the name which it bore was, "He's aye kissing me." It came from the lips of the heroine herself, and she described Sandy as a most attentive and laborious lover.
The tune was also entered into the 1840 music manuscript collection of multi-instrumentalist John Rook (Waverton, Cumbria).
