Ye Jacobites By Name
I recently got my SMG Mixed Instrument group to collaborate with Mary McCann's singing group on this song, to great effect. I don't know much about the song itself, except that Burns based it on "an old Jacobite song".
In my 'Complete Poetical Works of Robert Burns' all it says is -
Founded on some old verses set to a popular air. Stenhouse (who he?) says it is "an unclaimed production of Burns."
Found this on the web -
Song about the Jacobite Revolution of 1746. The song was re-written by Robert Burns in 1791.
Anne
In the Kilmarnock Edition of the Poetical Works of Robert Burns, the note by the editor (William Scott Douglas) accompanying this entry says, "This is undoubtedly by Burns though it is not claimed for him by name or mark in the "Museum" … The poet's original MS. is now in the hands of Mr David Dunbar of Dumfries".
I read recently that the song began life as a Hanovarian anti Jacobite song ... Jacobites [we know you] by name, pay attention (lend an ear) we're gonna do ye's in.
Johnny