Will Ye Gang, Love
Track Information
Original Track ID
SA1971.195.2
Original Tape ID
Summary
In this forsaken lover's song, a woman asks if her man will leave her to go with a strange lass. She laments that before she became pregnant, he was loyal to her, but now disowns her. She wishes she was a maid again, and that her baby was born and being taken care of by her own mother, so that she could die, because he has left her.
Isla St Clair says that the song is from the North-East.
Item Notes
Four verses, with chorus after verses one and two, and a modified valedictory chorus at the end. Performed live in concert at the Scott Conference, held as part of the bicentennial celebrations of Sir Walter Scott's birth. Isla St Clair sings "Wad ye gyang love and lyve me noo," appropriate to her own Buchan roots, as well as 'rodden' for 'rowan' tree, although the song is more commonly known as 'Will Ye Gang, Love'.
This song is from a large family of songs with several floating verses. There are similarities with numerous other songs in the Roud Folk Song Index: nos. 60, 273, 409, 495, 6776, 18828, 18833, 18832. MacColl & Seeger's 'Travellers' Songs from England and Scotland' contains a detailed discussion of this song family (1977, pp. 237-239).
The version sung here is closest to the text given by Norman Buchan in his '101 Scottish Songs' from the singing of Andrew Robbie, although in a slightly different order, and without the grave motif (1962, pp. 61, 152). It also seems to be a melding of three songs in Greig-Duncan, all in volume 6: song 1086, 'My Love He Stands' (p. 20), song 1169, 'Died for Love' (pp. 255-263), and song 1215, 'The Rashy Muir' (pp. 377-379). The final modified chorus in this version sounds like a modern construction done to round off the logic of the song's narrative.
Recording Location
County - Midlothian
Parish - Edinburgh
Village/Place - Edinburgh
Language
Scots
Genre
Collection
Source Type
Reel to reel
Audio Quality
Good