Burns's tunes mostly fall into two groups: old songs and new fiddle tunes. There was hardly such a thing as a "pipe tune" in the early 18th century - instrumental dance tunes came from songs.

There are known words to most of the old tunes Burns used, though sometimes only fragments.

On the other hand, when he tried putting words to recently-composed fiddle tunes, the result was often pretty hard to sing. "The Caledonian Hunt's Delight" was one of the few that really worked (better known as "Ye Banks and Braes").