Digital Tradition Mirror

Jenny's Bawbee

Jenny's Bawbee

     Your plack an my plack,
     Your plack an my plack,
     Your plack an my plack an Jennie's bawbee,
     We'll pit them i' the pint stoup, pint stoup, pint
        stoup,
     We'll pit them i' the pint stoup,
     An join a' three.
     ________________________________________________________

     Gregor (1881), 19; SC (1948), 86 (no.124).
A fragment of the old song found in Herd (1776), II.204, and
with music in SMM V (1796), 512 (no.496), whence Chambers SSPB
(1862), 245 (+ music), Moffat (1933), 6, and many other
places:

        And a' that e'er my Jenny had,

My Jenny had, my Jenny had;
        A' that e'er my Jenny had,

Was ae bawbie.

     There's your plack, and my plack,
     And your plack, and my plack,
     And my plack and your plack,
     And Jenny's bawbie.
        And a' that e'er, &c.

     We'll put it a' in the pint-stoup,
     The pint-stoup, the pint-stoup,
     We'll put in the pint-stoup,
     And birle't a' three.
        And a' that e'er, &c.

     It will be noticed that the chorus is missing from
Gregor's version.  As for the tune, the English nationalist
William Chappell claimed it as English because it appeared 3
years before the Museum, in a set of variations for the
pianoforte published by Dale, under the title Polly Put the
Kettle On (still its best-known title, in England at least;
see PMOT 795).  John Glen however showed it had appeared in
Scottish collections back to 1778 (SDM I.iv).  The air has
other ramifications; cf. the convivial song "The more we are
together", and its parent, the German "Ach, du lieber
Augustin", a pop song of the mid-eighteenth century, quoted
by Mozart.

MS
OCT98

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!