The Sweetest Lad Was Jamie

For details on the concert, click here.
The second Scottish song on my 2014 concert is a hybrid, like me. William Smyth, a professor at Cambridge, wrote the words for "The Sweetest Lad Was Jamie," a Scottish melody notated by the Scottish publisher, George Thomson. Thomson had Beethoven arrange over 150 Scottish, Irish and other songs.

I laughed when I first heard this song for I heard Beethoven's obvious hand in it. The melody alone could suggest a Scottish air, but with the under current of stoic German-ness, the whole sound humors me.

In the picture, I think it's my thirteenth birthday with a cake my mother made me, my part Scottish grandfather is on the left, and my Tante Erika is between me and my grandfather. Erika was born in East Prussia and moved to Frankfurt, Germany.
The song suits me verra well, no?

In singing the song, I noticed in the first verse that all the notes over "Jamie" or any pronoun that referred to him has an appogiatura, an ornamental note that precedes the main note. Instead of taking the subsequent three verses as straight, strophic repetition, I am learning to keep the appogiaturas only in reference to Jamie. That works most of the time in the first half of the verses. I've reordered the words "I huffed and tossed with saucy air" so the accents fit the music better.
It is written:               I-huf-fed-and-toss'd-with-saucy-air.
I changed it to:          I- huff'd-and-toss'd-with-sau-cy-air.

The story of the song, written in the early 1800s, still sits true today. Take a look at the lyrics. Fun song!


The sweetest lad was Jamie, the sweetest the dearest.
And well did Jamie love me, and not a fault had he.
Yet, one he had, it spoke his praise, he knew not women's wish to tease.
He knew not all our silly ways. Alas! The woe to me.

For though I loved my Jamie, sincerely and dearly,
Yet often when he wooed me, I held my head on high.
I huffed and tossed with saucy air, and danced with Donald at the fair.
I placed his ribbon in my hair, and Jamie passed him by.

So when the war pipes sounded, dear Jamie he left me.
And now another maiden, will Jamie turn to woo.
My heart will break and well it may, for who would word of pity say,
To her who threw a heart away, as faithful and so true.

Oh knew he how I loved him, sincerely and dearly.
How I would fly to meet him, oh happy were the day!
Some kind, kind friend, oh come between, and tell him of my altered mien,
that Jeannie has not Jeannie been, since Jamie went away.