They Took Me to the Haly Band
They Took Me to the Haly Band - fact Summary
Included in the Merry Muses
This short, bawdy lyric by Robert Burns appears in the bawdier collection The Merry Muses of Caledonia and reflects his conversational, humorous voice. It stages a comic domestic scene in which the speaker is lectured for his behavior toward his wife, and he replies with brusque wit. The poem is notable less for narrative complexity than for its earthy tone and self-deprecating masculinity, aligning with Burns’s known interest in everyday speech, ribald humor, and sketches of personal experience.
Read Complete AnalysesThey took me to the haly band, For playing bye my wife, Sir; And lang and sair they lectur'd me, For hadin' sic a life, Sir. I answer'd in na mony words, "What deel needs a' this clatter; "As lang as she cou'd keep the grip "I aye was mowing at her".
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