Comin' Thro' the Rye
The Scottish song, for 2 to 4 singers: two verses of "Gin a body meet a body", as printed in Edinburgh in 1849. The soprano sings the melody with its Scotch snaps, the alto sings the words mostly in thirds and sixths beneath it, the tenor fills in the chord, and the bass sings the low line.
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The first verse
Words: traditional Scottish, after Robert BurnsTune: traditional Scottish
Gin a body meet a body comin' thro' the rye,Gin a body kiss a body, Need a body cry?Ilka lassie has her laddie, Nane, they say, ha'e I!Yet a' the lads they smile at me, When comin' thro' the rye.
About Comin' Thro' the Rye
Comin' Thro' the Rye is a Scots song that Robert Burns reworked from an older one for James Johnson's Scots Musical Museum. The earliest printing we have seen is in the Museum's fifth volume, which libraries date to 1796. It gives the song twice: Burns's set, with the chorus "Oh Jenny's a' weet poor body", to one tune, then on the next page an unsigned "2d Sett", the tune sung today, with an earlier form of our words. William Stenhouse later wrote that the music-seller John Watlen "altered the first strain of the former tune a little, and published it with the new words. His edition had a considerable run." John Glen dated Watlen's printing of that second set to 1794, before the Museum's. Our tune and words are read from G. F. Graham's Songs of Scotland of 1849, in G, with four parts of our own. "Gin" means "if", and "ilka" "each". This is two verses for 2 to 4 singers, at a moderate pace.
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