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The Music of Robert Louis Stevenson
Wandering Willie
By J.F.M. Russell ©2019
Robert Louis Stevenson began studying the piano and composition at age 36 and learned the penny whistle two years later. He played the flageolet, a version of the whistle equipped with keys, almost until the end of his life. His arrangements and compositions include more than 120 pieces. This site describes his complete works through facsimiles, transcriptions, recordings, quotations and commentary.
"An interesting chapter in his life will be written when all his scattered pieces are brought together, and the musical side of his character unexpectedly revealed to the vast public that knows him now only as the winsome versifier and the accomplished romancer."
Robert Murrell Stevenson in Robert Louis Stevenson's Musical Interests, 1957.
Facsimile:
Transcription:
Recording:
Manuscript Location:
New York Public Library
Robert Louis Stevenson collection of papers, [1873]-[1944] bulk (1881-1917)
Berg Coll MSS Stevenson
Sources:
Gems of Scottish Song. Boston: Ditson, 1866:
Significant References in Works of R.L.S.:
Works of Robert Louis Stevenson. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1922-1923. Vol. 24. A Night in France:
Comments:
Since Stevenson rarely indicated what music inspired his verses, the fact that he occasionally did must mean something special. Number XVII in Songs of Travel has the subtitle To the Tune of Wandering Willie in parentheses, so there should be no doubt about what music inspired it. The standard lyrics to the tune, more properly known as Here awa’ there awa’, are by Burns, so in boldly naming the song, Stevenson implies that he is not afraid to be compared.
To the Tune of Wandering Willie was written in 1888 at Tautira, Tahiti, where Stevenson suffered a long illness. He sent the poem to Charles Baxter in a letter that explains his motivation:
That he is familiar with the music called Wandering Willie is assumed from his references to it in his writings throughout his life. He first mentions it in a letter to his mother in 1874 while staying at Mentone.
Willie reappears in the essay A Night in France (1875):
It is sung in Deacon Brodie (1888):
Finally it appears in The Master of Ballantrae (1889), where Stevenson quotes his own lyrics.
With so many references to Wandering Willie in his works, we must believe that RLS had no doubt he was referring to the version made famous by Burns, especially since he challenges him outright in his letter to Baxter.
Every major source of Scots songs shows some variation of the tune found in James C. Dick’s Songs of Robert Burns. There is an arrangement by Haydn and a portion of a recording from the Linn edition of complete songs can be heard by clicking here.
Probably as a reference for his own poem, RLS wrote out what he assumed was the music.
A comparison of the first four bars of both tunes shows they are not the same. The difference is clear when both melodies are in the same key.
Burns’ song is in waltz time, while Stevenson’s has a two beat measure. The pitches and the shapes of the melodies are different. Even though he mentions the song many times throughout his life and seems to be thoroughly familiar with it, Stevenson is obviously not using the same tune as Burns.
RLS wrote Wandering Willie while recovering from a severe illness. It is easy to believe he was not always in his right mind. The simplicity of the melody he notated indicates he may have written it from memory and this could also have led to mistakes, but the inconsistencies in the two songs are greater than what would be caused by illness or bad memory.
This is not the first time RLS has mistaken a piece of music. In Hammerton’s Stevensoniana (1903) J. Cuthbert Hadden quotes Stevenson as remarking, "He never could remember the name of an air, no matter how familiar it was to him."
Proof of this assertion is found in a letter he wrote to his mother in 1872:
Unfortunately Lang, lang ist’s her is not the German version of Auld Lang Syne but of Long, Long Ago.
In Stevenson’s defense it should be noted that in German, English and Scots the words “lang” and “long” sound alike and the association could easily have misled his hand in a hurried letter.
However, it is not because of illness, a faulty memory, or a confused hand that Stevenson worked from the wrong melody.
Probably in June of 1888 when he was in San Francisco preparing for his journey across the Pacific on the yacht Casco, he obtained a music book called Gems of Scottish Song (1866), first published in Boston by Oliver Ditson in 1845 as Beauties of Caledonia. Stevenson's Library Database identifies the 1866 edition as part of his personal library and says that,
According to the Journal of the Robert Louis Stevenson Club (London), no.15, (Feb 1954), pp.9-10, this has the stamp of Gray's Music Store, 623 & 625 Clay Street, San Francisco, and is one of the nine books previously in RLS's library at Vailima that were returned to Samoa in celebration of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
Gems of Scottish Song contains all but one of the tunes Stevenson said he knew and loved in his letter to his mother in 1874; Auld Lang Syne, My Boy Tammie, Jock O’ Hazeldean, and Scots wha’ hae. Wandering Willie was listed in the table of contents both as Here awa’ there awa’ and under the title:
The note in small print reads,
The beautiful air of ‘Here awa’, there awa,’ is preserved in Oswald’s collection of Scots tunes. Burns, who was fond of the melody, wrote the following fine verse to it.
The collection referred to is James Oswald’s Caledonian Companion, and the tune appears as the first piece in volume eight.
One glance at the melody called Wandering Willie in Gems of Scottish Song shows they are different. The tune in Caledonian Companion is the same one referenced in every major source of Burns songs, but the one in Gems of Scottish Song does not appear in any source as Wandering Willie.
Below is a comparison between the melody Stevenson used, the melody from Gems of Scottish Song (GOSS), and the tune Burns used from the Caledonian Companion (CC).
Stevenson’s rhythmically simplified melody is the same as that in Gems of Scottish Song. Burns’ tune from Caledonian Companion is completely different not only in rhythm but in melody.
As previously mentioned, the note under the title of Wandering Willie in Gems of Scottish Song reads, “The beautiful air of ‘Here awa’, there awa,’ is preserved in Oswald’s collection of Scots tunes. Burns, who was fond of the melody, wrote the following fine verse to it.” Although it is the inappropriate melody for Here awa’, there awa, it is in Oswald, it is still a beautiful air, and in fact Burns was fond of it because he wrote lyrics to it called Bonie Dundee (first version, 1792), which appears in volume one of Scots Musical Museum:
O whar did ye get that hauver-meal bannock?
O Silly blind body, O dinna ye see?
I gat it frae a brisk sodger laddie,
Between Saint Johnstone and Bonie Dundee.
O, gin I saw the laddie that gae me't!
Aft has he doudl'd me on o' his knee.
May Heaven protect my bonie Scots laddie,
And send him safe hame to his babie & me.
Hauver-meal bannock = oatmeal cake
Because the lyrics hint at illegitimacy, the Boston music publisher Oliver Ditson may have found them offensive and so substituted the words of Here awa’ there awa, or he may have known the music from another version called The Cooper O’ Dundee in the Burns collection Merry Muses of Caledonia shown below in a transcription by MacColl in Folk Songs and Ballads of Scotland (1965). A few moments spent reading the lyrics will explain why Ditson would never have used them.
Why Ditson did not use the appropriate tune for Wandering Willie remains a mystery, but it must have been unthinkable in 1845 to include the scurrilous text from The Cooper o’ Dundee. Perhaps he felt that even though the lyrics were changed, the tune would remind people of the The Cooper o’ Dundee and he decided to disguise the melody too. He did this by changing the meter from 6/4 to 2/4, altering some pitches, and imposing characteristic Scotch rhythms.
The result was that in Gems of Scottish Song Ditson fitted Burns’ text from Wandering Willie to a highly altered version of the melody of Bonie Dundee. For mistakenly writing his poem from a memory of this corrupted music while recovering from a severe illness, Stevenson deserves understanding.