It was Not My Fortune to Get Her
Track Information
Original Track ID
SA1954.105.A7
Original Tape ID
Summary
This song is about a man whose former lover is now to be wed to another. He asks her to wait as she is falsely beguiled. [Apparently at the wedding] he raises a toast to the couple, saying however that she is only his "auld shoes" when she is with her new husband. Broken-hearted, he says he will lie down for a long sleep [i.e. death], this being the only way he can forget her.
Preceded by Hamish Henderson's introduction, saying that he first recorded the song in the North-East from Jeannie Robertson about one month previously.
Item Notes
6 verses. Performed live in concert at the 4th People's Festival Ceilidh in 1954. Also called 'She's Only my Auld Shoes' or 'I Aince Lo'ed a Lass'. There is a version called 'It was Not My Fortune to Get Her' in the National Library of Scotland broadsides collection, published at the Overgate in Dundee, c. 1880-1900.
See:
'Jeannie Robertson: Emergent Singer, Transformative Voice' (J. Porter & H. Gower, 1995) pp. 244-245.
Greig-Duncan vol. 6, pp. 310-327, no. 1198
Ord p. 175, 'It Wasna My Fortune to Get Her'
Recording Location
County - Midlothian
Parish - Edinburgh
Village/Place - Edinburgh
Language
Scots
Genre
Collection
Source Type
Reel to reel
Audio Quality
Good