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Broadside ballads entitled 'Jamie Raeburn', 'Annie Dear, Goodbye', 'The Lowlands of Holland', and 'Over the Sea to Skye' |
CommentaryThe first ballad begins: 'My name is Jamie Raeburn, near Glasgow I was born, / My place and habitation I'm forced to leave with scorn'. The second ballad begins: 'I'm leaning o'er the gate, Annie, / 'Neath my cottage wall'. The third ballad begins: 'The love that I hae chosen, I'll therewith be content, / The saut sea shall be frozen, before that I repent'. The fourth ballad begins: 'Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing, / Onward, the sailors cry'. This broadside was published and distributed by the Poet's Box, Overgate, Dundee. It includes songs that would have already been well known to the audience of the day, and as a result probably sold well. Whilst most broadsides featured one or at most two ballads, this sheet of four songs would have been considered good value for money. 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: RB.m.143(121)
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