Digital Tradition Mirror

Aiken Drum (Willie Wood)

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

Aiken Drum (Willie Wood)

There cam a man to our town, to our town, to our town,
There cam a man to our town, and his name was Willy Wood.

And he played upon a razor, a razor, a razor,
And he played upon a razor, and his name was Willy Wood.

His hat was made o' the guid roast-beef, the guid roast-beef,
His hat was made o' the guid roast-beef, and his name was Willy Wood.

His coat was made o' the haggis bag, the haggis bag, the haggis bag,
His coat was made o' the haggis bag, and his name was Willy Wood.

His buttons were made o' the baubee baps, the baubee baps, the baubee baps,
His buttons were made o' the baubee baps, and his name was Willy Wood.

But another man cam to the town, cam to the town, cam to the town,
Another man cam to the town, and they ca'd him Aiken Drum.

And he played upon a ladle, a ladle, a ladle,
And he played upon a ladle, and they ca'd him Aiken Drum.

And he ate up a' the guid roast-beef, the guid roast-beef, the guid roast-beef,
And he ate up a' the guid roast-beef, and his name was Aiken Drum.

And he ate up a' the haggis bag, &c.

And he ate up a' the baubee baps, &c.
________________________________________________________

Chambers PRS (1870), 41, with music. SNR 98 (no. 120; two
stanzas only, with music).  Cf. Halliwell NRE (1842), p.
33 (li), no provenance given:

There was a man in our toone, in our toone, in our toone,
There was a man in our toone, and his name was Billy Pod;
And he played upon an old razor, an old razor, an old razor,
And he played upon an old razor, with my fiddle fiddle fe fum fo.

And his hat it was made of the good roast beef, the good roast beef, &c.
And his hat it was made of the good roast beef,
  and his name was Billy Pod;
And he played upon an old razor, &c. &c.

And his coat it was made of the good fat tripe, the good
     fat tripe, the good fat tripe,
And his coat it was made of the good fat tripe, and his
     name was Billy Pod;
And he played upon an old razor, &c.

And his breeks they were made of the bawbie baps, the
     bawbie baps, &c.
And his breeks they were made of the bawbie baps, and
     his name was Billy Pod;
And he played upon an old razor, &c.

And there was a man in tither toone, in tither toone, in tither toone,
And there was a man in tither toone, and his name was Edrin Drum;
And he played upon an old laadle, an old laadle, an old laadle,
And he played upon an old laadle, with my fiddle, fiddle fe fum fo.

And he eat up all the good roast beef, the good roast beef, &c. &c.

And he eat up all the good fat tripe, the good fat tripe, &c. &c.

And he eat up all the bawbie baps, &c. and his name was Edrin Drum.

The tune is given in G.F. Graham, Songs of Scotland (Glasgow,
J. Muir Wood, n.d. [1848-9]), III.26-7, with specially-
written words ("When lang sinsyne I married", etc.).  G.F.G.
notes that the air was sung in his boyhood "to ludicrous but
unmeaning stanzas, beginning--


There lived a man in our town,
            In our town, in our town,

There lived a man in our town,
            And his name was Aiken drum.

We were told that this man wore a strange coat, with buttons
of `bawbee-baps', and that `he played upon a razor.'"  This
takes it back to the turn of the century, he being born in
1789.

Hogg Jacobite Relics II (1821), 22,  gives a political song
of circa 1715 [?] with the chorus "Aikendrum, Aikendrum",
though the tune there = My Luve's in Germanie.  He quotes a
stanza of another song, evidently a version of our text:


There was a man cam frae the moon,

Cam frae the moon, cam frae the moon.

There was a man cam frae the moon,

An' they ca'ed him Aikendrum.

William Nicholson's "The Brownie of Blednock" bears the
mysterious name (originally in The Dumfries Magazine, Oct.
1825), and in another poem Aikendrum turns out to be a lover
in disguise, namely David Vedder's "Aikendrum", in e.g.
Whitelaw BSS ([1844], 1875), 418, beginning "A warlock cam'
to our town".  It first appeared anonymously in The Edinburgh
Literary Gazette.
Graham prints (in Appendix, 167), as to the air, "The Piper
o' Dundee", which usually goes to its "own" tune, a version
of the reel The Drummer.  Cf. ODNR 52 (No.7), text from Walter
Crane's Baby's Bouquet, 1879, which begins like Hogg's
fragment; the second man is called Willy Wood.  Chambers may
have been mistaken here.  Moffat also has "There cam' a man...
Aiken Drum" [8 lines only] (50 TSNR, 1933, 19), with the music.

MS

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!