Commentary
Verse 1: 'Up in the mornin's no for me- / Up in the mornin' early / The Bailies and I could never agree / To rise in the morning early.' This song should be sung to the tune 'Up in the mornin' early'. There is woodcut of a comfortable looking, well-dressed man supping wine in a parlour. The allusions to the Queen and the Provost in this song mean that it most likely to referred to Queen Victoria's visit to Edinburgh in 1842. The Lord Provost at the time was Jemmie Forrest, and unfortunately for his career, some of the plans for her official welcome did not go well. The main incident was when the Edinburgh guard of honour and the Queen's bodyguards mistook each other for assassins and scuffle broke out! There were many broadsides published at the time which accused Forrest of sleeping when he should have been paying attention. Broadsides are single sheets of paper, printed on one side, to be read unfolded. They carried public information such as proclamations as well as ballads and news of the day. Cheaply available, they were sold on the streets by pedlars and chapmen. Broadsides offer a valuable insight into many aspects of the society they were published in, and the National Library of Scotland holds over 250,000 of them.
View Transcription | Download PDF Facsimile
|
