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Description: | Verse 1: 'O mount and go, Mount and make you ready, O mount and go, And be the Captain's Lady. When the drums do beat, And the cannons rattle, Thou shall sit in state, And see thy love in battle. When the drums do beat, And the cannons rattle. Thou shalt sit in state, And see thy love in battle.' Chorus: 'O mount and go and etc.'
The 'Scots Musical Museum' is the most important of the numerous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collections of Scottish song. When the engraver James Johnson started work on the second volume of his collection in 1787, he enlisted Robert Burns as contributor and editor. Burns enthusiastically collected songs from various sources, often expanding or revising them, whilst including much of his own work. The resulting combination of innovation and antiquarianism gives the work a feel of living tradition.
This song is to be found in various earlier publications from the 1730s onwards. It, however, went by a range of different names, including 'Mount my baggage' and the 'Cady Laddie'. It has also been associated with a Strathspey reel entitled, 'Dalry House'. This last tune is thought to have evolved from the melody given here. The lyrics of the tune have no clear history, however. | License: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 | Publisher: | National Library of Scotland | Temporal: | 1787-01-01 - 1803-12-31 | Source: | Burns Scotland | Identifier: | Volume III, song 233, page 242 - 'The Ca | Go to resource |
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