Jamie Raeburn

Original Track ID

SA1965.159.A29

Original Tape ID

SA1965.159

Summary

In this song, Jamie Raeburn laments leaving Scotland after being sentenced to transportation [for an unspecified crime].

The contributor heard the story of Jamie Raeburn forty-five years before from a man from Bearsden who worked at his uncle's farm as a rabbit catcher, and who apparently knew some of Raeburn's descendents still living in Bearsden; Raeburn was a baker in Glasgow who was transported for the crime of poaching.

Item Notes

3 verses of 4 lines.

In two further common verses not included in this performance, Jamie Raeburn bids farewell to his parents and sweetheart; broadsides often include a final verse in which he imagines a reunion with his family in Heaven.

The contributor later names the rabbit-catcher who told him the story of Jamie Raeburn as Charles MacFarlane (SA1965.159.B5).

See:
Greig-Duncan vol. 8, pp. 52-63
'Flying Cloud' (M. C. Dean, 1922) pp. 90-91
'101 Scottish Songs' (N. Buchan, 1962) p. 40
'Come Gie's a Sang' (S. Douglas, 1995) pp. 58-59
Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads, 2806 c.14(19)
'Bothy Songs & Ballads' (J. Ord, 1930) pp. 357-358
'Singing Island' (E. MacColl & P. Seeger, 1960) p. 80
'The Sang's the Thing' (S. Douglas, 1992) pp. 163-164
'Flower of Dunaff Hill' (J. McBride, 1988) pp. 100-101
'Herd Laddie o The Glen' (A. McMorland, 2006) pp. 47-48
'Vagabond Songs & Ballads' vol. 2 (R. Ford, 1901) pp. 55-56
'Sam Henry's Songs of the People' (G. Huntington, 1990) p. 124
Murray Collection (Broadsides), Glasgow University Library, mu23-y1:106
'Travellers' Songs from England and Scotland' (E. MacColl & P. Seeger, 1977) pp. 288-290
National Library of Scotland, Broadside Ballad collection, RB.m.143(121) (Poet's Box, Dundee c.1890) & L.C.1270(013) (1840-1850)

Item Subject/Person

Raeburn, Jamie

Recording Location

Item Location

Language

Scots

Genre

Song Information

Collection

SoSS

Classification

R600 GD1535

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Fair