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Broadside ballad entitled 'Fareweel' |
CommentaryVerse 1: 'Guid evenin' frien's, I hope your weel, / I'm prood tae see you a', / I just wis passin' through the toon, / So I thought I'd gie you a ca', / I'm gaun awa' across the seas, / My fortune for tae try, / So I've just come tae see you frien's / An' bid ye a' guid bye.' A note under the title announces that it was 'Sung with great success by J.G. Roy'. This ballad published by the Poet's Box, Overgate, Dundee, combines traditional verse and chorus with a spoken reminiscence recounting a particularly drunken night. It tells of one man's last 'jolly spree' before he sets sail for distant shores. With the Scottish diaspora of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, such themes were extremely popular and struck a chord with many of those left behind. 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(125b)
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