Thursday 17 May 2018
Tune of the Day: Because He Was a Bonny Lad
Traditional country dance and reel
This tune appears in the Drummond Castle Manuscript, inscribed “A Collection of Country Dances written for the use of his Grace the Duke of Perth by David Young, 1734”. Nearly simultaneously, the melody was printed in London by John Walsh in his Third Book of the Compleat Country Dancing Master (1735). The piece retained its popularity through that century and into the next, and to this day it is a core tune in Northumbrian piping repertory.