Where the Gadie Rins (II)

DESCRIPTION: Singer finds that his girl's "kilt (is) short and I could see." She tells his he's being unfair; she's going home to her mother. He muses that when her mother finds out what he's done, he'll have to fly. He laments that he can't go and see her.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1962 (collected from Maggie McPhee)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Singer takes his girl on his knee; "her kilt was short and I could see." She tells his he's being unfair; they've slept together, but he doesn't care, so she's going home to her mother. If her baby's a boy, she'll call him Jock. He tells her to go home, and muses that when her mother finds out what he's done, he'll have to fly. He laments that he can't go and see her, and says he'll live with his mother until he dies "at the back o' Bennachie." Chorus: "There's meal and there's ale whaur the Gadie rins/At the back o' Bennachie."
KEYWORDS: sex rejection parting pregnancy baby lover mother
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
MacColl/Seeger-TravellersSongsFromEnglandAndScotland 46, "Where Gadie Rins" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #5404
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Back o' Bennachie
I Wish I Were Where Gadie Rins
NOTES [163 words]: The melody "Where (the) Gadie Rins" is said to be a common pipe tune in Scotland. (MacColl and Seeger date it to 1815; Ord suspects the eighteenth century.) Like some other pipe tunes (e.g. "The Flowers of the Forest), it seems to have picked up various texts.
One may suspect that, like some fiddle tunes, it had a mnemonic verse or two. All the texts seem to have a lyric similar to:
Oh, gin I were whaur the Gadie rins,
The Gadie rins, the Gadie rins,
Oh, gin I were whaur the Gadie rins
At the back o Bennachie
or
But there's meal and there's ale whaur the Gadie rins,
The Gadie rins, the Gadie rins,
But there's meal and there's ale whaur the Gadie rins
At the back o Bennachie. - RBW
I was tempted to use "The Back o' Bennachie" as the title for the main entry; however, there seem to be several songs under that name (including versions of "Locks and Bolts") whose plots are quite different from this one, and from each other. So I stuck with Maggie McPhee's title. - PJS
File: McCST046

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