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Highland Mary / Ye Banks and Braes and Streams

[ Roud 1095 / Song Subject MAS1446 ; Ballad Index CrSe161 ; DT HIGHMARY ; Robert Burns]

Frank Kidson: Traditional Tunes Folk-Songs of the North-Countrie

Paddy Tunney sang Highland Mary on his 1982 Green Linnet album of traditional songs of Ireland, The Stone Fiddle, that accompanied his 1979 book of the same name. He noted:

Highland Mary is a song my mother sang frequently with her other Scottish songs. I believe it was Robbie Burns himself composed this one, but she listed it along with her other big songs. I once heard a Galway man sing it but he had only two verses and you could scarcely call him a singer. He drizzened a wee bit you know. Still he was a clinking lilter. Traditional dance music was his first love. My mother and this man were the only two mortals I ever heard sing Highland Mary.

Phil Cooper played the tune Highland Mary on his, Margaret Nelson’s and Kate Early’s 1999 album Hearts Return. He noted:

The original name of this tune is Katherine Ogie. When Robert Burns used it as a setting for his poem Highland Mary, the tune took on its current title. The march tempo evolved out of an instrumental rehearsal. Guitar CGCGCD, key: Gm.

Ross Kennedy sang Ye Banks and Braes and Streams in 2001 on the Linn anthology The Complete Songs of Robert Burns Volume 9.

Jim Malcolm sang Highland Mary on his 2007 album of songs of Robert Burns, Acquaintance. He noted:

This song is based on the star-crossed relationship Burns had with young Mary Campbell. Her death caused him great pain and severely damaged his reputation. It is a difficult song to sing, having a strange internal rhythm.

Lyrics

Jim Malcolm sings Highland Mary

Ye banks and braes, and streams around
The castle o’ Montgomery,
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie.
There simmer first unfald her robes,
And there the langest tarry:
For there I took the last Fareweel
O’ my sweet Highland Mary.

How sweetly bloom’d the gay, green birk,
How rich the hawthorn’s blossom;
As underneath their fragrant shade,
I clasp’d her to my bosom.
The golden Hours, on angel’s wings,
Flew o’er me and my Dearie;
For dear to me as light and life
Was my sweet Highland Mary.

Wi’ mony a vow, and lock’d embrace,
Our parting was fu’ tender;
And pledging aft to meet again,
We tore oursels asunder:
But Oh, fell Death’s untimely frost,
That nipt my Flower sae early,
Now green’s the sod, and cauld’s the clay,
That wraps my Highland Mary.

O pale, pale now, those rosy lips,
I aft hae kiss’d sae fondly,
And clos’d for ay, the sparkling glance,
That dwalt on me sae kindly.
And mouldering now in silent dust,
That heart that lo’ed me dearly,
But still within my bosom’s core
Shall live my Highland Mary.