"John Come Kiss Me Now" is an English and Scottish air and country dance in 4/4 or cut time and G Major (Chappell) or F Major (Emmerson, Johnson). It is played in one part (Chappell) or AB (Emmerson, Johnson). It was originally an English tune appearing in the Cuming Manuscript (a fiddle book from Edinburgh, 1723-4), the McFarlane Manuscript, 1740, and the Gillespie Manuscript of Perth (1768) The title also appears in Henry Robson's list of popular Northumbrian song and dance tunes (The Northern Minstrel's Budget), which he published c. 1800. The morris dance tune "Shepherd's Hey" is similar to the first (and sometimes sole) part of "John Come Kiss Me Now". Chappell (1859) found it in The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (c. 1650, credited to William Byrd), Robinson's New Citharen Lessons (1609), Airs and Sonnets and a MS in the British Museum. It also appears in Playford's Introduction to the Skill of Music (1654), Musick's Delight on the Cithren (1666), A Book of Lessons for the Cithern & Gittern (1652), Apollo's Banquet for the Treble Violin, D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy, McGibbon's Scots Tunes (1768). It was printed in Aird's Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 4 (1796), Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time, vol. 1 (1859), Emmerson's Rantin' Pipe and Tremblin' String (1971), Johnson's Scots Musical Museum (1792) and Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion, Book 6 (1760). It was recorded by The Baltimore Consort on A Trip to Killburn, Robin Williamson on Legacy of the Scottish Harpers and Hesperus on Early American Roots (1997).