Origin: Bonnie Bessie Logan

Subject: RE: Origin: Bonnie Bessie Logan
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 08 Nov 15 - 06:58 PM

You can hear how it goes on this YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYUBcCa7OPg

Subject: RE: Origin: Bonnie Bessie Logan
From: GUEST,Ewan
Date: 08 Nov 15 - 06:07 PM

Meant to say Alex sang Bessie Logan.

Subject: RE: Origin: Bonnie Bessie Logan
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 08 Nov 15 - 02:36 PM

Very interesting information. Been wondering about the song for years. Tune is also used for Hullo Patsy Fagan, music hall song. Alex Campbell sang a version.

Subject: ADD Version: Bonnie Bessie Logan
From: GUEST,#
Date: 08 Nov 15 - 11:47 AM

From pp 115-6 at

https://archive.org/stream/laterpoemsofalex00ande/laterpoemsofalex00ande_djvu.txt

BONNIE BESSIE LOGAN.

O, BONNIE Bessie Logan
    Is dainty, young, and fair;
The very wind that's blawin'.
    It lingers in her hair.
Sae lichtsome is her footstep
    As she comes o'er the lea ;
But bonnie Bessie Logan
    Is owre young for me.

O, bonnie Bessie Logan,
    The lads are at the stile,
Or half-way up the loanin'
    To catch your winsome smile;
I fain wad be amang them,
    If sic a thing could be,
But bonnie Bessie Logan
    Is owre young for me.

O, bonnie Bessie Logan,
    I saw you late yestreen ;
A rose was on your bosom,
    And love was in your een.
I doot the lad that pu'd it
    Is sure to win his plea,
For bonnie Bessie Logan
    Is owre young for me.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bonnie Bessie Logan
From: Reinhard
Date: 08 Nov 15 - 10:14 AM

And John Mearns recorded Bonnie Bessie Logan for an EP on the Scottish Records label called "Folk-Songs of the North-East", probably in 1960-65. The sleeve notes said:

"Little is known of Bonnie Bessie Logan. This version was taken down from an old lady in Montrose by John Mearns himself. The lady, who was eighty, said that she heard her mother sing it sixty or seventy years before."

... which would make the song at least a hundred years old.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bonnie Bessie Logan
From: Reinhard
Date: 08 Nov 15 - 09:44 AM

These are A.L. Lloyd's sleeve notes from Ian Manuel's album:

Scotland has been specially prolific in lyrical songs that lie close to folk tradition but are nonetheless the compositions of educated author, whether amateur or professional, anonymous or known. This is one such, with stylised rural poetry set to a good tune that, brisked up, has also served as a march and has been adapted for one or two music hall ditties. Ian Manuel learnt it from the singing of the good Aberdeenshire singer John Mearns.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bonnie Bessie Logan
From: Megan L
Date: 08 Nov 15 - 08:59 AM

a little more research and I found indexes for songs of the rail and ballads and sonnets and it does not appear in either of them though it does appear in the index of a volume of his works, many previously unpublished, which was published by his friends in 1912 3years after his death.

Thank you for asking about this song it has set me on an interesting study of a fascinating man.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bonnie Bessie Logan
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 08 Nov 15 - 08:48 AM

It can't be that old because it doesn't feature in any of the old Scottish collections of traditional songs even as late as the Greig-Duncan Collection. My old mate, Ian Jock Manuel used to sing it and I therefore assume he got it from the repertoires of the likes of the Robertsons or the Stewarts, travellers. It might also be worth checking Harry Lauder's repertoire.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bonnie Bessie Logan
From: GUEST,Sol
Date: 08 Nov 15 - 08:42 AM

Please, please don't call him "'Bobbie"
It's Robert or Rabbie.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bonnie Bessie Logan
From: GUEST,Heres the why
Date: 08 Nov 15 - 08:24 AM

I don't play many popular songs. some of the old songs I cover become known and enjoyed by some of the listeners. I get a kick out of introducing songs from centuries past. Some of the Bobby Burns songs being a good example. It occurred to me I had no idea how old Bonnie Bessie Logan is. Thanks Again Megan L

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bonnie Bessie Logan
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Nov 15 - 08:19 AM

Thank You

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bonnie Bessie Logan
From: Megan L
Date: 08 Nov 15 - 07:58 AM

have not been able to narrow it down much but apparently it appeared in one of the volumes of poetry written by Alexander Anderson who was born in 1845 and died in 1909

Songs of Labour,(1873)
Two Angels (1875)
Songs of the Rail (1878)
Ballads and Sonnets (1879)

Subject: Folklore: Bonnie Bessie Logan
From: GUEST,Tommy O'mallet
Date: 08 Nov 15 - 07:42 AM

I have looked high and low on the Internet to try and nail down a date of origin for the song "Bonnie Bessie Logan". Does anyone have a guess as to what year this sing is originally from?