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Broadside ballad entitled 'Cheer Boys, Cheer Medley' |
CommentaryThis ballad begins: 'Cheer, Boys, Cheer! Tam Glen, and Maggy Lauder, / Bessie Bell, and Mary Gray, and Jean o' Sauchieh, / Met Auld Robin Gray, on the Banks o' Allan water, / And danced the Reel o' Boggie there wi' Jockie far awa.' Below the title we are told, 'Copies of this popular song can be had the Poet's Box, 182 Overgate, Dundee'. 'Boggie' is 'a designation for priests who married people contrary to canon law. This light-hearted ballad contains four verses of nonsense about various Scottish folk characters and the funny escapades that they have been involved in. In short, the ballad is gossip transposed into song lyrics. The reference to Ireland in the last verse suggests that the writer of the ballad was Irish, or that the ballad was intended for an Irish-Scottish audience. It is not clear what the connection between the different Poet?s Boxes were. They almost certainly sold each other?s sheets. It is known that John Sanderson in Edinburgh often wrote to the Leitches in Glasgow for songs and that later his brother Charles obtained copies of songs from the Dundee Poet?s Box. There was also a Poet?s Box in Belfast from 1846 to 1856 at the address of the printer James Moore, and one at Paisley in the early 1850s, owned by William Anderson. Early ballads were dramatic or humorous narrative songs derived from folk culture that predated printing. Originally perpetuated by word of mouth, many ballads survive because they were recorded on broadsides. Musical notation was rarely printed, as tunes were usually established favourites. The term 'ballad' eventually applied more broadly to any kind of topical or popular verse.
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Probable period of publication:
1880-1900 shelfmark: L.C.Fol.70(59b)
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