Todlen Hame
“Todlen Hame” was, according to Robert Burns, “perhaps the first bottle song that ever was composed.”
When I’ve a Saxpence under my Thumb,
Then I get Credit in ilka Town:
But ay when I’m poor they bid me gang by;
O! Poverty parts good Company.
Todlen hame, todlen hame,
Coudna my Love come todlen hame.
Fair-fa’ the Goodwife, and send her good Sale,
She gie’s us white Bannocks to drink her Ale,
Syne if that her Tippony chance to be sma’,
We’ll tak a good Scour o’t, and ca’t awa’.
Todlen hame, todlen hame,
As round as a Neep come todlen hame.
My Kimmer and I lay down to sleep,
And twa Pint-stoups at our Bed’s Feet;
And ay when we wakn’d, we drank them dry:
What think we of my wee Kimmer and I?
Todlen butt, and todlen ben,
Sae round as my Love comes todlen hame.
Leez me on Liquor, my todlen Dow,
Ye’re aye sae good humour’d when weeting your Mou;
When sober sae sour, ye’ll fight with a Flee,
That 'tis a blyth Sight to the Bairns and me.
When todlen hame, todlen hame,
When round as a Neep ye come todlen hame.
In
Scottish Songs Prior to Burns
,
Robert Chambers related the following amusing anecdote in regard to “Todlen Hame”.
“It used to be a great favourite with the merry clubs of Edinburgh,
and a gentleman named Balfour so charmed the fraternity of Golfers,
by singing it in a characteristic manner,
that they had his portrait taken by Raeburn,
and hung up in the Golfers’ Hall at Leith.
The position of the singer, with his thumb turned appropriately down upon the table,
and his sly comic look, made this a picture of some value, irrespective of the fame of the artist.”
The song appeared in William Thomson’s
Orpheus Caledonius
of 1733,
in Allan Ramsay’s
Tea Table Miscellany
and in James Johnson’s
The Scots Musical Museum
, Volume 3, of 1790.
From “Scotland Dances”, by Eugenia (Jeannie) Callander Sharp
(Used by permission.)