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Description: | Verse 1: 'The weary pund, the weary pund, The weary pund o' tow; I think my wife will end her life, Before she spin her tow. I bought my wife a stane o' lint As gude as e'er did grow; And a' that she has made o' that Is ae poor pund o' tow.' Chorus: 'The weary pund, the weary pund, The weary pund o' tow; I think my wife will end her life, Before she spin her tow.'
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.
Glen (19O0) states that this melody originally came from James Oswald's book, 'The Caledonian Pocket Companion' (1759). In a letter to James Johnson, Burns said 'I was so lucky lately to pick up an entire copy of Oswald's Scots music and I think I shall make glorious work out of it'. Though Glen goes on to say that there is some doubt as to whether any lyrics existed for this song until Burns wrote some verses, he states that Sir Walter Scott narrated a similar-sounding song. This suggests there might well have been pre-existing lyrics which Burns merely embellished. | 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 IV, song 350, page 362 - 'The wea | Go to resource |
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