February 2026 - "My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose"

Robert Burns ca. 1788

Just in time for the upcoming Valentine’s Day observances, this month’s tab is an arrangement of the timeless love song “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose.” Written in 1794 by the iconic Scottish poet and composer Robert Burns, the lyric emerged from his deep engagement with Scottish folk tradition and his mission to preserve it. His poem was inspired by fragments of older Scots songs that Burns encountered during his work compiling material for The Scots Musical Museum. He reworked various lines and phrases from traditional Scottish songs and poems that had been handed down through the oral tradition into a polished, poetic form that retained their folk essence.

Burns originally paired the lyric with the fiddle tune “Major Graham of Inchbrakie” by Niel Gow, a celebrated Scottish composer, fiddler, and performer. This pairing appeared in the Scots Musical Museum in 1796, shortly before Burns’s death. However, the song’s popularity grew in the 19th century when it was re-set to the traditional air “Low Down in the Broom,” which became the dominant setting over time. However, scholars and traditionalists continue to honor Burns’s original pairing with Gow’s strathspey, which is the tune that the arrangement presented here is based upon.

Here’s a link to a YouTube video of the tune being by fiddler Vi Wickam:

Wishing you all a Happy Valentine’s Day!

In music and friendship,

—Tull

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