Origin: Ae Fond Kiss (Robert Burns)

Subject: Ae Fond Kiss - background?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 20 Mar 01 - 10:52 PM

I've recently been thinking about the Robert Burns song, Ae Fond Kiss. (Follow the link to the lyrics in the DT.) I seem to remember hearing once that Burns wrote it for a woman he was in love with, though they had never actually met. I'm also not sure if the woman died. I've known and loved the song for years, but this story resonates with me very strongly right now, and I'd very much like to know the real scoop.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Ae Fond Kiss - background?
From: GUEST,Phil Cooper
Date: 20 Mar 01 - 11:16 PM

Dear Mark,

The story I had heard (and have no sources to back me up, so I could be wrong is: While Burns was the toast of Edinbourough high society he had an infatuation with a woman. It was purely platonic (nothing happened)but he got this poem out of it. A bit of courtly love? I'll check back with the thread later, as I would really like to know the story, too, if it's different.

Subject: RE: Ae Fond Kiss - background?
From: Sorcha
Date: 20 Mar 01 - 11:29 PM

Click here and see what you think......a Burns Encyclopedia article.

Subject: RE: Ae Fond Kiss - background?
From: Sorcha
Date: 20 Mar 01 - 11:31 PM

Burns Country Home Page

Subject: RE: Ae Fond Kiss - background?
From: Noreen
Date: 21 Mar 01 - 07:15 AM

Good thread, Mark. I've loved the song for many a year too (Dick Gaughan with 5-Hand Reel), but knew nothing of its history.

Thanks for the links, Sorch.

Noreen

Subject: RE: Ae Fond Kiss - background?
From: IanC
Date: 21 Mar 01 - 08:10 AM

According to Paterson's "Songs of Scotland"

The song was inspired by the poet's love for Mrs Nancy Maclehose or 'Clarinda' of the famous epistolatory flirtation. Unusually for Burns, the relationship remained platonic and in December 1791 the lady, who was unhappily married, left Scotland to join her husband in the West Indies - hence the song.

Cheers!
Ian

Subject: RE: Ae Fond Kiss - background?
From: Dunc
Date: 21 Mar 01 - 10:34 AM

I heard once that it was Mrs Bobbit's favorite Burn's song
....Aye fond kiss - and then we sever

Subject: RE: Ae Fond Kiss - background?
From: LR Mole
Date: 21 Mar 01 - 11:19 AM

And after that,Burns always wore black and white face paint and platform shoes.

Subject: RE: Ae Fond Kiss - background?
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 21 Mar 01 - 08:02 PM

Can't compete with the Burns Encyclopaedia, but there's some more info here. Don't be put off by the first entry, which is in German.

Subject: Lyr Add: Ae Fond Kiss
From: RunrigFan
Date: 21 Feb 19 - 07:11 PM

Robert Burns, song Ae Fond Kiss

Sung by many singers

From the singing from David Solley

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, and then forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears   I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans, I'll wage thee.
Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
Never met—or never parted—
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, and then forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears   I'll pledge thee

Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest!
Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest!
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace. enjoyment, love, and pleasure!
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, alas, forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears   I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee!

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43798/ae-fond-kiss

Subject: RE: Origin: Ae Fond Kiss (Robert Burns)
From: GUEST,Mad jock
Date: 22 Feb 19 - 08:44 AM

One of the best renations of Aerosmith Fond Kiss is by Angie Wright. She sings it so beautifully that audience members have been brought to tears.
It is on one of her old CDS. But hearing it live is much better.

Subject: RE: Origin: Ae Fond Kiss (Robert Burns)
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 22 Feb 19 - 12:37 PM

Aerosmith????

Subject: RE: Origin: Ae Fond Kiss (Robert Burns)
From: robomatic
Date: 22 Feb 19 - 03:33 PM

There is also a touching movie
of the same name.

Burns gu bràth!

Subject: RE: Origin: Ae Fond Kiss (Robert Burns)
From: Jim McLean
Date: 23 Feb 19 - 10:47 AM

It's not normally sung to the tune Burns set it to, Rory Dall'S Port.
The melody sung now a days is the Gaelic 'Hi oro 's na Horo Eile'.

Subject: RE: Origin: Ae Fond Kiss (Robert Burns)
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 23 Feb 19 - 12:19 PM

Hi Jim, here's my favourite rendition
by the master
and to think we folkies used to make fun of this man! What fools we were.

Subject: RE: Origin: Ae Fond Kiss (Robert Burns)
From: Anne Neilson
Date: 23 Feb 19 - 01:39 PM

Jim McLean, Kevin Mitchell does a great version to the Rory Dall's Port tune -- though I've also a great fondness for Kenneth McKellar's rendition!

Subject: RE: Origin: Ae Fond Kiss (Robert Burns)
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 23 Feb 19 - 02:29 PM

Runrig Fan: the version in the DT includes all the verses: the one you have posted is missing some.

One of my favourite Burns songs: one of my friends sings it to the original tune, tho' I do prefer the (now) more commonly used one. Kevin (and his wife, Ellen) will be guests at our folk club in March, so hope he does the Rory Dall's Port version!

Subject: RE: Origin: Ae Fond Kiss (Robert Burns)
From: Anne Neilson
Date: 23 Feb 19 - 06:38 PM

Tattie Bogle -- wee bit of advice: give Kevin some advance warning that you'd like this version of said song!

Subject: RE: Origin: Ae Fond Kiss (Robert Burns)
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 23 Feb 19 - 07:30 PM

Will/can do!

Subject: RE: Origin: Ae Fond Kiss (Robert Burns)
From: Jim McLean
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 03:48 AM

Akenaton, I never dismissed McKellar, especially as he sang my Massacre of Glencoe!

Subject: RE: Origin: Ae Fond Kiss (Robert Burns)
From: GUEST,Mad jock
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 07:32 AM

Search Taggart and Wright and you can hear their version on Angie Wright solo album 'Coming Through'. Well worth a listenew.

Subject: RE: Origin: Ae Fond Kiss (Robert Burns)
From: RunrigFan
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 07:28 PM

The version sung by David Solley, only includes those verses

Subject: RE: Origin: Ae Fond Kiss (Robert Burns)
From: Felipa
Date: 26 Jan 21 - 07:26 AM

Mark Cohen, who started this thread, had incorrect information that Burns had never met the women to whom he sent the lyrics of Ae Fond Kiss.

There is quite a full description of their courtship and correspondence in Wikepedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Maclehose
I looked that up because some other references I looked at made no mention of Agnes' enduring affection for Burns as expresssed in her diary many years after they last saw each other.
"On 6 December 1791 Robert and Agnes met in Edinburgh for the last time; she outlived him by 45 years.

Under the date, 6 December 1831, Nancy wrote in her journal: 'This day I can never forget. Parted with Burns, in the year 1791, never more to meet in this world. Oh, may we meet in Heaven!'[4]

In her old age Agnes Maclehose took great delight in talking of the poems and songs Burns had written in her honour and also of her own verses he had received and approved. On the anniversary of any event concerning Burns, she noted in her journal, 'Things I never can forget'. "
[4] Burns Encyclopedia

some other informatation:

http://www.robertburns.org/works/358.shtml

"When Burns's affair with Mrs Agnes M'Lehose ('Clarinda') came to an end, and he settled down to married life with Jean Armour, he still retained a strong affection for 'Clarinda'. They met in Edinburgh for the last time on 6th December 1791. She was then about to set sail for Jamaica in the hope of achieving reconciliation with her husband (a hope that was not to be realized). On 27th December, Burns sent her 'Ae Fond Kiss' from Dumfries, a song so genuine in its resigned passion that it makes the drawing-room songs of 'sensibility' he had previously written for her seem artificial and insignificant. Sir Walter Scott thought that 'Ae Fond Kiss' contained the 'essence of a thousand love tales'.

It appeared in the Scots Musical Museum in 1792, to the tune of 'Rory Dall's port', which had first been published in the Caledonian pocket Companion, c. 1756 (bearing no relation to a tune of the same name in Straloch's MS, 1629). Rory Dall was the 'cognomen' of the harpers attached to the McLeods of Sky (so the tune is probably much older), while 'port' is Gaelic for 'air'. As with so many of Burns's loveliest songs, Victorian balladists also matched this one to settings utterly unworthy of the original air."

Subject: RE: Origin: Ae Fond Kiss (Robert Burns)
From: GUEST,Tinker Beau
Date: 26 Jan 21 - 01:25 PM

I believe Scott's judgment is of the lines "Had we never..." etc., rather than of the song as a whole. Doesn't "Dall" signify that the harper was blind?

Subject: RE: Origin: Ae Fond Kiss (Robert Burns)
From: GUEST,Rob mad jock wright
Date: 01 Feb 21 - 07:26 AM

Best version I have heard is that by singer songwriter Angie Wright . She has brought many a tear to the eyes of listeners such is the emotion in her rendition.
Best heard live
Now that would be great.
In the meantime she has songs on Spotify and other platforms and 20% of all sales go toward supporting the Scottish Mental Health. Charity SAMH.

She was also half of Taggart and Wright and you can get FREE downloads from their old web site.

What's not to like..

Subject: RE: Origin: Ae Fond Kiss (Robert Burns)
From: Reinhard
Date: 01 Feb 21 - 07:51 AM

That's the third time you're promoting Angie Wright's version is this thread ;-) It's nice enough but to me far from the "best version".

Subject: RE: Origin: Ae Fond Kiss (Robert Burns)
From: GUEST,Rob mad jock Wright
Date: 02 Feb 21 - 11:41 AM

Well I may be a bit biased.... but others agree that it a superb rendition.