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Description: | Verse 1: 'Up wi' carls of Dysart, And the lads o' Buckh'ven And the Kimmers o' Largo, And the lasses o' Leven. Hey ca' thro' ca' thro' For we hae mickle a do, Hey ca' thro' ca' thro' for we hae mickle a do.' The title 'Hey Ca' thro' means 'Hey, work away', and 'carls' refers to old men and 'kimmers' to gossips.
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.
Apart from being a poet and songwriter in his own right, Burns was an avid collector of existing Scottish folksongs. He collected and revised many of those included in Johnson's 'Museum', and is known to have contributed this particular song. In this instance, however, despite the song bearing no attribution, Burns is generally considered to be its author. According to John Glen (1900), the accompanying melody was 'quite a mystery' and until its inclusion in the 'Museum' never appeared in print. | 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 392, page 405 - 'Hey Ca' | Go to resource |
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