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Broadside ballad entitled 'Bonny Aberdonian; or, Marry an Aberdonian' |
CommentaryVerse 1: 'Now I've been looking up and doun / For months, I'm sure, about this toun, / A thrifty wife my joys to croon - / But I'll no say I'll take ony ane. / O' a' the places I ha'e seen / In different places I ha'e been, / Nae damsel pleases my twa een / Like a strapping Aberdonian.' This song was supplied by the Poet's Box. The town or city is not specified, but it was probably published in Dundee. This comic ballad is narrated by a man whose greatest ambition in life is to marry an Aberdonian. The narrator seems proud of his careful, conservative outlook, criticising those who drink beer and claiming that his greatest joys are 'a bonny young lass and a gude cup o' tea'. Although the place of publication is not identified on this broadside, it seem likely that it did originate in north-east Scotland. The expression 'loonie', meaning 'boy' or 'man' and the pronounciation 'dee' for English 'do', are both markers of north-eastern Scots. 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(85b)
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