Annie Laurie

DESCRIPTION: "Maxwelton's braes are bonnie Where early fa's the dew, And it's there that Annie Laurie Gied me her promise true." The singer describes all of Annie's beautiful and wondrous traits, concluding, "And for bonny Annie Laurie I wad lay me doon and dee."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1823 (Sharpe's "Ballad Book")
KEYWORDS: love courting beauty nonballad
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (16 citations):
Huntington-TheGam-MoreSongsWhalemenSang, pp. 263-264, "Bonnie Annie Laurie" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fireside-Book-of-Folk-Songs, p. 110, "Annie Laurie" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 150, "Annie Laurie" (1 text)
Fuld-BookOfWorldFamousMusic, p. 101, "Annie Laurie"
Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #45, p. 4, "Annie Laurie" (6 references)
Heart-Songs, p. 301, "Annie Laurie" (1 text, 1 tune)
Jolly-Miller-Songster-5thEd, #104, "Annie Laurie" (1 text)
Dime-Song-Book #1/72, p. 15 and #1/64 p. 40, "Annie Laurie" (1 text)
Brumley-LamplitinTimeInTheValley 38, "Annie Laurie" (1 text, 1 tune)
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, p. 189, "Annie Laurie" (notes only)
Harbin-Parodology, #74, "Annie Laurie" (1 text)
Rodeheaver-SociabilitySongs, p. 16, "Annie Laurie" (1 text, 1 tune)
National-4HClubSongBook, p. 60, "Annie Laurie" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ford-SongHistories, pp. 23-31, "Annie Laurie" (1 text plus related texts)
DT, ANNLAURI*
ADDITIONAL: Aline Waites & Robin Hunter, _The Illustrated Victorian Songbook_, Michael Joseph Ltd., 1984, pp. 206-208, "Annie Laurie" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #8179
RECORDINGS:
Cliff Bruner, "Annie Laurie" (Decca 5647, 1939; rec. 1938)
Edison Quartet, "Annie Laurie" (CYL: Edison 2201, c. 1897)
Corinne Morgan, "Annie Laurie" (Victor Monarch 4039, c. 1902)
Marie Narelle, "Annie Laurie" (CYL: Edison 9422, 1906)
Standard Quartette, "Annie Laurie" (CYL: Columbia 2236, rec. 1895)
Nevada Vanderveer, "Annie Laurie" (Bell S-77, c. 1923)
BROADSIDES:
LOCSheet, sm1857 631330, "Amie Laurie," J. F. Browne (New York), 1857 (tune); also sm1883 06654, 1883 (tune)
Murray, Mu23-y1:121, "Annie Laurie," unknown, unknown
NLScotland, L.C.Fol.178.A.2(056), "Annie Laurie," James Lindsay (Glasgow), 1852-1859; also L.C.Fol.178.A.2(062), "Annie Laurie," James Lindsay (Glasgow) [despite both being by Lindsay, and using the same woodcut, they are not the same broadside]
SAME TUNE:
The Price of Freedom (File: CAFS2446)
St. George and Mormon Dixie (File: ChMS117)
The Death of Annie Laurie (Dime-Song-Book #3, p. 7)
Song, on the Death of President Abraham Lincoln ("Halls and Homes in black are shrouded," by Silas S. Steele) (Wolf-AmericanSongSheets p. 148)
Miss Jones, by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) (a poem set to a medley of pop tunes, with this being the next to last) (Anne Clark, _The Real Alice_, Stein and Day, 1981, p. 82)
The World Is Clothed with Beauty (Henry Randall Waite, _Carmina Collegensia: A Complete Collection of the Songs of the American Colleges_ first edition 1868, expanded edition, Oliver Ditson, 1876, p. 106)
When First the Sun Has Risen (by E. S. Lawson, [class of 18]62) (Henry Randall Waite, _Carmina Collegensia: A Complete Collection of the Songs of the American Colleges_ first edition 1868, expanded edition, Oliver Ditson, 1876, p. 27)
Good Old Trinity (by James Buchanan, [class of 18]53) ("Come, let us laugh and sing, And let us merry be") (Henry Randall Waite, _Carmina Collegensia: A Complete Collection of the Songs of the American Colleges_ first edition 1868, expanded edition, Oliver Ditson, 1876, pp. 30-31)
Ode of the Seasons ("In Springtime when the meadows put on their em'rald hue") (by A. P. Knapp) (Albert P. Knapp, _Grange Songster_, 1915, p. 13)
The Voice of the Nation's Dead ("From mountain hill and vally A warning seems to come") (Garfield and Arthur Campaign Song Book 1880, p. 15)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Annie Lawrie
NOTES [1051 words]: Legends about this song are much more common than verifiable facts. The story is that William Douglas (who allegedly wrote the poem) fell in love with Annie Laurie, a member of a rival clan some time between 1685 and 1705. The poem is said to have been published at the time, but (according to Fuld) no printing prior to Sharpe's of 1823 has been found.
Waites and Hunter have more details about the alleged inspiration: Ms. Laurie was born at Maxwelton in 1682, and lived to the age of 83, being buried in Glencairn near Maxwelton. The man she married was not Douglas. The fullest account of this is in Ford-SongHistories, which also has a drawing alleged to be of Annie Laurie, but given the uncertainties, I'm not sure I should repeat this. You can find the book on Google Books should you so wish.
The tune is almost certainly the work of Lady John Scott, and was published in 1835. Spaeth thinks she wrote the words as well, but Scott was born in 1810, and admitted herself that the first verse was older, and the second also based on ancient materials. At most, Scott deserves credit for the third verse.
Dr. William Mahar claims this is one of the six most popular songs of the Civil War era. I've no idea what his evidence for this was; I've never seen it mentioned in any Civil War history. I do find myself surprised; I've seen de-Scotticized versions, and they just don't work very well. On the other hand, Edwin Wolf 2nd, American Song Sheets, Slip Ballads, and Political Broadsides 1850-1870, Library Company of Philadelphia, 1963, p. 4, lists six American broadsides from the Civil War era, so it was certainly frequently printed. Several of these call it "now the most popular Ballad in the British Camp," which would seem to imply some sort of conflict with Britain.
Dime-Song-Book #3, p. 7, has a song, "The Death of Annie Laurie," which is clearly a sequel, and hence presumably more evidence of the popularity of the song. RBW
Murray Shoolbraid lists various sources for the song, broken out by the tune-types, the "old" tune and the Scott tune. Shoolbraid lists the following as versions of the "old" tune:
? Wm. Douglas of Fingland, c. 1700.
Sharpe Ballad Book (1824), no. xxxvii (reprint, p. 108).
Ford Song Histories (1900), 24.
SSCA (1870), 45; BSS (1875), 438.
Chambers SSPB 309 (+ music); Ross CSS (1887), 369; Crockett Minstrelsy of the Merse (1893), 213.
Shoolbraid adds, "How old this 'old' version is is a good question. Lady John Scott told Moffat that it was written (i.e. forged) by Allan Cunningham, who imposed other fabrications on poor Cromek. The 2nd stanza derives from the old version of 'John Anderson,' in the Merry Muses, and A.C. certainly had access to a copy. Sharpe's first printing (1823) is pretty late for a song of 1700.
For the Scott tune, Shoolbraid lists
Ford Song Histories (1900), 28.
SS I.4 (+ m.); BSS (1875), 439; Wood's Songs of Scotland III.24 (+ m.); Gleadhill 80 (+ m.); Crockett Minstrelsy of the Merse (1893), 213 (tune [by Lady John Scott] previously used by her for the ballad of "Kempy Kaye"). Ross CSS (1887), 369. B&F 20 (+ m.); Allan's Sc. Songs, 11 (+ m.), anonymous (merely subtitled "The Favourite Scotch Ballad, as sung by Jenny Lind"). Dun & Thomson VMS III.89 (+ m.) (anon.).
The tune [by the authoress] is in Manson (1846), II.151.
Other words include Crawford's "My Mary Dear."
Shoolbraid summarizes the data thus:
"There are two texts to consider, that of the 'original,' and that of Lady John Scott. The first seems to appear for the first time in Sharpe's Ballad Book of 1824, though it has been asserted that it appeared in an Edinburgh newspaper in the early 18th century. That original was reprinted in Allan Cunningham's collection of Scottish songs [The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern (1825), vol. III p.256], where he tells us he found it in Sharpe.
Lady JS found it in Cunningham, and noticed that a tune of hers previously intended to suit the old ballad of Kempy Kaye would fit this very nicely - with a little polishing. She altered the first stanza, altered the second some more, and made a completely new third; sang it to her hosts, and it was approved. This was in 1834 or 1835. Later she published it along with others of her composition to raise money for widows and orphans of soldiers killed in the Crimea. It became very popular, being sung by Jenny Lind, among others, but she withheld acknowledgement of the authorship until February 1890, when she confessed in a letter to the Dumfries Standard.
"Lady John Scott's version is the familiar one referred to by Spaeth et al. The original, credited to Douglas, cannot be traced any farther back than Sharpe. It is not impossible that it lurks in a corner of some obscure paper [and we must remember that not every issue is extant]; but the authoress herself is said to have told Moffat that it was a forgery by Allan Cunningham. If this is true, we can see where AC got it: the second verse derives from an old version of 'John Anderson, My Jo,' to be found in The Merry Muses of Caledonia (1799-1800), and Cunningham certainly has access to a copy. AC was quite a practised forger: he gulled Cromek into publishing the Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song (1810), most of which seems to be by AC himself.
"Robert Ford (Song Histories, 1900, 23-31) goes into some detail on all this, reproducing a letter written by a descendant of the Anna Laurie of the song, by which the story of its original composition is made clear; it is to be assumed that the writer got her facts right, at least in regard to family tradition. One way out of the impasse is to say that Moffat misunderstood Lady John Scott's reference to Cunningham, and that the tradition about Douglas is true; notwithstanding the problems about Cunningham's unreliability and the long interval between composition and publication by Sharpe. Lady John, after all, did not find the Sharpe copy; the only other alternative, that Cunningham planted it on Sharpe, is very unlikely. On the whole, therefore, I give the palm to Douglas, though I admit the story is still a bit mirky." - MS, (RBW)
Could the source for Shoolbraid's attribution possibly be Fireside-Book-of-Folk-Songs? That attributes it identically, including the abbreviation of "William" to "Wm." -PJS
Last updated in version 6.6
File: FSWB150A

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography