Today’s tune is
BONNIE AT MORN
This is a beautifully haunting waltz in the key of Am. When researching the tune, I discovered that it actually a lullaby. On The Mudcat Café, one member stated this:
“Jean Redpath recorded it on ‘Lowlands’ (1980)(lyrics). Info by A. L. Lloyd:
[1965:] Northumbria is the only part of England with its own regional music-dialect, its own stock of melodies that are distinct in style from tunes anywhere else in the country. And of this style, Bonny at Morn is one of the masterpieces. Its peculiarity no doubt derives from the character of the local northeastern bagpipe, and the tune was surely an instrumental one before words became attached to it. A great, if neglected, pioneer folk song collector, John Bell, noted the song at the outset of the nineteenth century, but it wasn’t printed until 1882, in The Northumbrian Minstrelsy. The poem takes a curious twofold form; in part it’s a lullaby addressed to a baby, and in part it’s reproach to a lazy son who is ‘ower lang’ in his bed and won’t get up. (A.L. Lloyd, notes ‘New Voices’) “
Here are the lyrics, although, like most folk music, there may be variation to these. It is also simply beautiful as an instrumental.:)
The sheep’s in the meadow and the kye is in the corn
Thou lies ower lang in thy bed, bonny at morn
The sheep’s in the meadow and the kye is in the corn
Thou lies ower lang in thy bed, bonny at morn
Canny at e’en, bonny at morn
Thou lies ower lang in thy bed, bonny at morn
We’re a’ laid idle wi’ the keepin’ o’ the bairn
The lad will not work and the lass will not learn
We’re a’ laid idle wi’ the keepin’ o’ the bairn
The lad will not work and the lass will not learn
Canny at e’en, bonny at morn
Thou lies ower lang in thy bed, bonny at morn
The birdie’s in the nest and the trout is in the burn
Thou hinders thy mother at every turn
The birdie’s in the nest and the trout is in the burn
Thou hinders thy mother at every turn
Canny at e’en, bonny at morn
Thou lies ower lang in thy bed, bonny at morn
Canny at e’en, bonny at morn
Thou lies ower lang in thy bed, bonny at morn
