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A’ ADAM’S BAIRNS
This CD has been produced as part of a partnership project developed
by the National Library of Scotland, Scotdec and Dr Fred Freeman.
It has been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the National
Library of Scotland. The CD is supported by a teachers’ resource pack,
and a programme of workshops and training events for pupils and
teachers. For further information about the project, please contact
the Education & Outreach Officer at the National Library of Scotland
(www.nls.uk) or the Coordinator, Scotdec (www.scotdec.org.uk).
Scotdec
©
front cover image : scotsman publications
1. HAWKS AND EAGLES 2. YELLOW ON THE BROOM 3. ERIN-GO-BRAGH 4. THE SLAVE’S LAMENT 5. WE’RE A’ JOCK TAMSON’S BAIRNS 6. SCOTLAND’S STORY 7. THE DESTITUTION ROAD 8. INDIAN DEATH SONG 9. DOOMSDAY IN THE AFTERNOON 10. WHY DAE THEY SAY I’M ONLY A JEW? 11. RIVONIA 12. THE SUN RISES BRICHT IN FRANCE 13. BOTH SIDES THE TWEED 14. I AM THE COMMON MAN 15. LARKHALL 16. A MAN’S A MAN 17. FREEDOM COME ALL YE 18. COMIN HAME Tich Frier
Rod Paterson
Ross Kennedy
Emily Smith
Ian Bruce
Nick Keir
Dave Taylor
Gillian Mcdonald
Steve Byrne
Wendy Weatherby
Steve Byrne
John Morran
Emily Smith
Ross Kennedy
Dave Taylor
Wendy Weatherby
Jim Reid
Ian Bruce
Produced by Dr Fred Freeman. Engineered by Richard Werner
Mixed by Fred Freeman and Richard Werner
Recorded at B & B Studios, Edinburgh
For 3 Education Officers who have made quite a difference:
John Wilson (E. Ayrshire), Maggie Singleton (Glasgow) and
Catriona Henderson (Inverclyde)
1
INTRODUCTION
by Dr Fred Freeman
I
t was that great patriot Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun who once reflected that ‘if
a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make
the laws of a nation’. Certainly Scotland’s songsters, more than her legislators, have
reminded us of our moral imperatives. With men of conscience like Robert Burns and
Hamish Henderson in the vanguard of Scottish song writing, the strength of the tradition
cannot be denied – nor should it be.
1807 marks the end of the slave trade, but it was 1838 before slavery itself was wholly
outlawed from the British Empire. Moreover, as late as 1993, ex-pat Scots, and people
of Scottish extraction, were denying basic human rights to black people in South Africa
under the iniquitous system of aparteid. In a poignant song, Hawks and Eagles, Ian
Walker describes the struggle of the oppressed blacks of South Africa as a pitched battle
between birds of prey and birds of peace, and, in a vision that has now been fulfilled,
asserts that ‘hawks and eagles will fly like doves... one day’.
2
What names tell us
‘Hawks’ and ‘doves’. We have been both in our long history, and all the names round us
tell us as much about ourselves. Those West Indian street names in Glasgow – Jamaica
Street, Tobago Street, the Kingston Bridge, are reminders that, for a long period, many
of us were hawks, involved in the black slave trade which sustained the lucrative cotton,
sugar and tobacco industries that made much of Glasgow’s wealth in the 18th and 19th
centuries. On the other hand, Nelson Mandela Place reminds us of the doves amongst
us who voluntarily entered the anti-aparteid struggle on behalf of their oppressed black
brethren. In 1964 Hamish Henderson himself would compose and record Rivonia, with
its compelling refrain ‘Free Mandela, Free Mandela’, for the freedom fighters of South
Africa. The song was taken up by the anti-aparteid movement – in fact, by the soldiers in
the field – and inspired Nelson Mandela within his prison cell on Robben Island. Mandela
would thank Henderson years later, when South Africa was a free country.
Like the names of the streets, our place names; the names of our national heroes;
the names we call one another; the very words we use to describe our surroundings:
all reveal so much about ourselves. Take that famous Scottish maxim, ‘We’re a’ Jock
Tamson’s bairns’: we are all children of one family – mankind. For all time it stands as
a social measure of our behaviour towards one another in Scotland. What is culturally
significant is that it is a moral value which we as a nation espouse, whether we live up
to the measure or fall far short of it; and our song-writers, like the voice of a national
conscience, have always been quick to remind us of that fact.
It is no mere accident that Burns should have penned A Man’s A Man For A’ That; that
Hamish Henderson should compose a modern equivalent with his Freedom Come All
Ye; or that an Irish immigrant to Scotland should write We’re A’ Jock Tamson’s Bairns.
All remind us in characteristically Scottish turns of phrase of our moral imperatives:
respectively, that we must all unite so that ‘man to man the warld o’er (we) shall brithers
be for a’ that’; that in oor ‘hoose a’ the bairns o’ Adam / Can find breid, barley –bree and
painted room’; ‘that there’ll ne’er be peace till the warld again has learnt tae sing wi’
micht and main that we’re a’ Jock Tamson’s bairns’.
SCOTLAND THE ‘HEALTHY HYBRID’
The names of our ancient heroes – Wallace who was thought to be of Welsh extraction
and Bruce who was indeed of Norman extraction – remind us that Scotland has never
been a homogeneous nation but a mix of tribes and peoples; what Hamish Henderson
described as a ‘healthy hybrid’. The song, Scotland’s Story, says it so well when it refers
to ‘the Gael and the Pict, the Angle and Dane’ and to the many others in Scotland whose
story is ‘all worth just the same’.
3
All these tribes are still with us today if we bother to look. Driving up and down the
country one cannot help but notice all the place names that begin with ‘pit’: Pitlochry,
Pitscottie, Pitsligo, Pitlowie and so many more. They tell us that the Picts were settled in
these areas in our early history as do the haunting standing stones left behind by them.
The Brythonic tribes, or ancient Welsh, have left us with names beginning with Dun or
Dum, like Dumbarton, one of their ancient capitals, or Dunedin, Edinburgh’s original
name, as well as the Scottish place names we notice beginning with Pen or Eccle, like
Pencaitland or Ecclefechan. Glasgow itself is an ancient Welsh name, and Strathclyde
was one of the ancient Welsh kingdoms. One of our oldest pieces of so-called Scottish
literature, The Gododin, was actually written in ancient Welsh.
Scotland itself derives its name from an Irish tribe, the Scotti, who, it is thought, began
travelling across to Scotland from the north of Ireland as early as 290 AD. In time, the Irish
would bring us St Columba and Christianity; one of our national languages – Gaelic; and
powerful traditions of poetry, song and instrumental music that are still with us in the
present day. Geographical names, like ‘loch’, ‘ben’, ‘kyle’, and ‘strath’, attest to the Irish
connection.
If the Scotti brought us one of our national languages, the Angles of Bernecia in the north
of England brought us the other – Scots, when, in 638, they captured Dunedin, changed
its name to Edinburgh, and established their language in much of Lowland Scotland. By
an accident of history, the Anglian tongue would flourish in Scotland, as a courtly, civic
and literary tongue, as it declined in northern England under the domination of London
and Cambridge. Anglian words like ‘brig’ and ‘rig’, ‘dug’ and ‘hoose’, and so many more,
are common currency in much of Scotland. Moreover, there are still very strong cultural
links with Northumberland if we consider the musical traditions of the Scottish and English
Borders: the music of the Border Pipe and Small Pipe, Border Fiddling and dance tunes. It is
high time that we had the cultural maturity to recognize this Anglian or northern English
connection alongside that of the Irish, Norse and other Scottish traditions.
4
Apropos of the Norse connection, virtually every school in Scotland teaches about the
Viking raiders who settled in Scotland in the 900s; but little is taught of our obvious
linguistic connections with them. To a great degree, Scots is a Scandinavianised Anglian
tongue. The Vikings brought us words as mundane as ‘kirk’ and ‘dyke’, ‘birk’ and ‘breeks’.
And one could go on, delineating the contributions to Scotland of the Flemings and the
Dutch, the Northern French and the others.
For a long time the various tribes fought against one another and, then, forged alliances
which are celebrated in our history; the most famous being that of the Picts and the
Scotti who defeated the Romans. After a time, Scotland made peace with itself, and,
in its declaration of independence, the Declaration of Arbroath (6 April, 1320), formally
expressed the egalitarian ideals of its folk maxim, ‘We’re a’ Jock Tamson’s bairns’, when
it recognized that in the eyes of God there is ‘No difference between Jew or Greek,
Scot or Englishman’. James Hogg underlines this very point and extends it to its natural
conclusion, mutual respect between Scotland and England, in his refrain – ‘Let friendship
and honour unite, / And flourish on both sides the Tweed’ (Both Sides the Tweed).
THE SECTARIAN DIVIDE
Nonetheless, much of our history is not about mutual respect but about bigotry and
discrimination - especially sectarian division - that has plagued Scotland since the
Reformation: initially, John Knox and Presbyterianism on one side of the divide; Mary
Queen of Scots and Catholicism on the other; then, two centuries of strife between
Covenanter and Royalist, Whig and Jacobite. It is well to reflect that for centuries politics
and religion were wholly intertwined. With the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688, king
and country became Protestant. Presbyterianism became for many an integral part of
Scottish national identity as the ‘Kirk’ was, officially, the national church of the land. All
others were, somehow, outside the pale and, in some instances, would even be classified
as ‘aliens’. For example, in 1923 the Kirk published a document entitled The Menace of
the Irish Race to our Scottish Nationality. The crux of the argument centred round
religious difference; never mind the fact that the Irish had been here for nearly 2,000
years and had brought Christianity to the country in the first place.
5
This ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality is apparent in so many of the hostile names that have
emerged in Scotland over the centuries: ‘Patlander’ or ‘Pape’ for the Irish; ‘Teuchter’ for
Highlander; ‘Darkie’ or ‘Nigger’ for negro; ‘Dirty Jew’ for Jewish person and so on. These
names too tell us much about ourselves.
THE HIGHLANDERS
The Highlanders, for the most part having been loyal to their Catholic or Episcopal beliefs
and, thus, to the House of Stewart, suffered proscriptions, after the second Jacobite
Rebellion, against their Gaelic language, the wearing of Highland dress and playing of
the bagpipes: that is, against so many aspects of their heritage that we now celebrate
as most characteristically Scottish. Exile, as the song The Sun Rises Bricht in France so
poignantly reminds us, and The Destitution Road, enforced emigration, were the lot of
the Highlander for over one hundred years.
The song, The Destitution Road, paints a very grim, but accurate, picture of the Highland
Clearances: the mass evictions and house burnings which made way for the new
landlords and sheep farming, the disease and starvation and, gradual, enforced migration
of the Highlanders to the New World. Some of the 18th-century poems of Dougal Graham
and Robert Fergusson as well as the song sheets that sold at The Poet’s Box in Glasgow
and the weekly magazine, “The Bailie”, attest to the Highlander’s emergence, quite
generally within Scottish society, as a popular figure of ridicule. What a double standard
obtained that allowed for the Highlanders to be recognized, on one hand, as valiant and
effective British soldiers and, on the other, as worthless buffoons. How could any society
that has produced its Sorley Macleans, Ian Crichton Smiths or Donald Macleods – one of
the richest and most varied cultures in Europe – ever be perceived as such?
THE IRISH
In many respects, the Irish, the near cousins of the Highlanders, who were descended
from the Scotti, suffered the same fate. From the 18th-century they regularly came across
as seasonal workers on the farms – have, in fact, been credited with bringing the potato
6
to Scotland – and, with a slump in the linen industry, settled in the country as handloom
weavers. In the 19th-century they undertook the heavy, undesirable work as navvies,
labouring in the mines and on the roads, canals and railways. The horrible conditions of
their work in the mines is vividly portrayed in songs like I am the Common Man. They
provided much of the cheap, back-breaking labour that made the Industrial Revolution in
Scotland possible. Yet their contribution was hardly appreciated or recognized. Scotland’s
treatment of the Irish over the 19th and 20th centuries is, frankly, appalling and shameful.
The tens of thousands who traveled across to Scotland, often from Belfast, were jeered
at; spat at as they came off the ships and subjected to horrendous days of ‘baiting the
Barney’, beating-up the Irish. Described in the press as ‘locusts’, the Irish were blamed
for spreading disease and corrupting the morals of the nation; notwithstanding the fact
that they were cheated by the evil ‘truck system’, which forced them to pay unjust prices
for their daily necessities, and shepherded it into some of the worst housing in Scotland.
Donegal born Patrick MacGill documents all this in his autobiographical novels, Children
of the Dead End and The Rat Pit. Like the blacks under aparteid, the Irish Catholics had
no rights to vote or hold office; no rights of education until the Catholic Emancipation
Act of 1829; and it was decades later before educational authorities treated them
with anything like evenhandedness. In its own unique way, the song Erin-go-bragh
documents the horrifying degree of discrimination experienced by the Irish in Scotland.
Nonetheless, the Irish not only kept themselves going but encouraged the Highlanders
to preserve their Gaelic language and culture. Moreover, if one considers the great
contribution of writers like Arthur Conon Doyle or William McIlvanney to Scottish
literature; the influence of men like the Belfast born Francis Hutcheson on the Scottish
Enlightenment; the many musicians of Irish extraction who have contributed to Scottish
traditional music, then ‘the so-called “Irish invasion” , as Hugh MacDiarmid averred, was
‘destined..to be the best thing that happened to it (Scotland) for over 200 years at least.’.
7
Thankfully, there were other Protestants, aside from MacDiarmid, like John Ferguson and
Oliver Brown, who defended the Irish immigrants of the 19th and 20th-century. As Oliver
Brown, the Protestant socialist, so aptly put it:
These people are no longer to be reckoned as Irish except in origin…it is now as absurd to
describe a McGinty or a Reilly as necessarily Irish as to proclaim that an Inglis must be English,
a Fleming must be a Belgian or that a Wallace must be be Welsh.
THE TRAVELLERS
Another group, the travellers, who are descended from ancient metal workers, have
been fighting for their rights in Scotland for over a thousand years. ‘Dirty tinks’ is what
they have always been called; yet they are merely a community of people who travel up
and down the country, living in wagons, tents and caravans with so many other groups,
like the gypsies, for example, who have taken to the road. They are often compelled
to live fenced off near railways or hazardous pylons and sometimes occupy disused
factories or motorways: what has been described as ‘the worst housing in Britain’.
Craftsmen, story-tellers and musicians, the travellers carry a wholly unique and
irreplaceable variant of Scottish culture; speak a dialect of Scots called ‘cant’ and a form of
Gaelic mixed with Romany. The School of Scottish Studies has spent decades recording
all aspects of travellers’ culture: what Hamish Henderson referred to as
...the colossal wealth of folk tradition of every conceivable kind which had remained hidden
in tents…the very centre of a way life which, although profoundly alien to most industrialized
Western society, has a permanent appeal, validity and attractiveness of its own.
Henderson would spend a lifetime bringing to light superb traditional singers like
Jeannie Robertson and Lizzie Higgins; story-tellers like Duncan Williamson and Stanley
Robertson.
8
Something of the beauty of the travellers’ life is depicted in Yellow on the Broom and
their tenacity of spirit represented by Doomsday in the Afternoon – ‘Aye the travellers
will be wi’ us till Doomsday in the afternoon’.
Historically, the travellers and gypsies have been linked with the Jews as wandering
tribes who were persecuted and, ever, told to ‘move on’. Strangely, the Jews of Scotland,
who settled in small numbers in the 18th-century and, with the Russian pogroms, in
tens of thousands at the end of the 19th-century, were well received here. Scotland is,
perhaps, the only country in Europe that neither banished the Jews nor ever marshalled
them to live in squalid ghettos. The many positive accounts by Ralph Glasser, Evelyn
Cowan and so many successful writers, artists and politicians, like David Daiches, Chaim
Bermant, Benno Schotz, Manny Shinwell and others, attest to Scotland’s measuring-up to
its espoused ideal, ‘We’re a’ Jock Tamson’s bairns’.
THE JEWS
Cynics would say that Scotland was too involved in its age-old sectarian strife to worry
much about Jews. Be that as it may, Jews did experience a degree of discrimination as
‘aliens’ in the 1930s and 40s; and, those fleeing from pogroms in the early 20th-century
must have attracted uneasy attention because of their strange customs, appearance and
Yiddish speech. The touching song, Why dae they say I’m only a Jew?, which dates
from the early period, reveals as much. It is, in fact, about a Jew who feels that he is not
regarded equally in Scotland. In essence, it poses the ironical question: why do you, as a
society, say that a man’s not a man for a’ that; ‘why dae you say that I am only a Jew’ and
not, simply, a man like all other men.
Others seeking refuge have made their way here over the centuries and enriched the
cultural patina of Scotland: Italians, Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis, Poles and so many more
As the song says, ‘A’ Jock Tamson’s bairns / Are comin hame’ (Comin Hame); and the
onus is on us, more than ever before, to welcome, as equals, ‘a’ Adam’s bairns’.
��
9
Hawks and Eagles
As I was walking down the road,
I met my brother with a heavy load
I said to him what have you seen,
He said to me
I have a dream.
In 1960 I thought I’d died in Sharpeville’s
bloody town,
But I got up, I walked on tall nobody’s
goin’ to put me down.
Chorus
Hawks and eagles fly like doves
Hawks and eagles fly like doves
Hawks and eagles fly like doves
Hawks and eagles fly like doves
As I walked out along the way
I saw my sister bend and pray,
I said to her why do you kneel,
She says you don’t know how I feel.
I had a little boy and a little girl,
And I loved to watch them grow
But they were butchered on the streets
in the blood of Soweto.
Chorus
10
It’s ’85 and I’m walking still,
Across the Uitenhaage Hill.
Saw a crowd set off at dawn of day,
The soldiers said don’t come this way.
Then somebody threw a stone as they
walked up the track
A boy on a bike was the first to fall with
a bullet in his back.
Chorus
HAWKS AND EAGLES – Ian Walker
It’s been a long, long hard road,
Three hundred years since settlers strode
Into that Southern land,
Now they rule with an iron hand.
Low pay, no vote and passbook laws,
Don’t talk back they say.
But the hawks and the eagles will fly
like doves,
When the people rise one day.
Tich Frier – voice
Stevie Lawrence – dulcimer, log drum
Gillian Mcdonald – harmony vocals
Chorus
Whilst the song arose as a protest to the massacre at Uitenhaage, South Africa in 1985, it
commemorates two of the most important battles in the black struggle against apartheid: the
resistance at Sharpeville on March 21, 1960 and at Soweto on June 16, 1976. In both theatres
of civil war, large numbers of women and children were brutally murdered as they marched
in peaceful protest against ‘pass book laws’, the necessity of carrying passports limiting their
movement within their own country, and the imposition of Afrikaans language in their
schools: what Desmond Tutu rightly called ‘the language of the oppressor’. Like Bannockburn,
Sharpeville and Soweto were turning points in the liberation struggle which saw the nonracialist ANC rise to prominence under the leadership of one Nelson Mandela. The song’s
vision and message that birds of prey, ‘hawks and eagles’, will one day fly like birds of peace,
like ‘doves’, gives it a timelessness and universality.
��
11
Yellow on the broom
12
Well, I ken ya dinna like it, lass, tae winter
here in toun
For the scauldies they all cry us, aye, and
they try to put us doon,
And it’s hard to raise three barnies in a
single flea-box room,
But I’ll tak’ ye on the road again when the
yellow’s on the broom.
Nae sales for pegs and baskets noo, so just
to stay alive
We’ve had tae work at scauldy jobs frae
nine o’clock til five.
But we call nae man oor master, and we
own the world’s aroon,
And we’ll bid farewell to Brechin, when
the yellow’s on the broom.
When the yellow’s on the broom, when
the yellow’s on the broom,
I’ll tak’ ye on the road again when the
yellow’s on the broom.
When the yellow’s on the broom, when
the yellow’s on the broom,
We’ll bid farewell tae Brechin, when
the yellow’s on the broom.
Oh, the scauldies call us tinker dirt and
they sconce our bairns at school,
But who cares what a scauldy says for a
scauldy’s but a fool.
They never hear the yorlin’s sang nor see
the flax in bloom,
For they’re aye cooped up in hooses when
the yellow’s on the broom.
I’m weary for the springtime, when we’ll
tak’ the road aince mair
Tae the plantin’ and the pearlin’, aye , and
the berry fields o Blair,
We’ll meet wi all oor kinfolk there, frae a’
the country roon’,
When the gang-aboot fowk tak’ the road,
and the yellow’s on the broom.
When the yellow’s on the broom, when
the yellow’s on the broom,
They’re aye cooped up in hooses when
the yellow’s on the broom.
When the yellow’s on the broom, when
the yellow’s on the broom,
When the gang-aboot fowk tak’ the road,
and the yellow’s on the broom.
Scauldies – towns folk / Sconce – cheat / Aince – once / Gang-aboot fowk – travellers
YELLOW ON THE BROOM – Adam McNaughtan
Rod Paterson – voice
Sandy Brechin – accordion
Steve Byrne – cittern, harmony vocals
Betsy Whyte’s autobiography, The Yellow on the
Broom, the memoir of a travelling woman who
grew up in the 1920s and 30s, is here finely distilled
into flowing pastoral lyrics. Written from Betsy’s
mother’s point of view, the song reflects upon the
adversity the travellers endure: the poverty of their
cramped housing whilst wintering in Brechin,
the discrimination against their children in the
town, the inability to sustain themselves with their
traditional occupations as basket-makers and
door-to-door peddlers. That said, it still conveys
something of the freedom and joy of the travellers’
life as they take to the road with the first yellowing
of the spring broom and earn their livelihood as
planters, tattie howkers, berry pickers and pearl
fishers right across Angus and Perthshire.
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13
Erin-go-bragh
Ma name’s Duncan Campbell fae the shire
O Argyll
I’ve traivellt this country for mony’s the mile
I’ve traivellt thro Scotlan, Irelan an aa
An the name I go under’s bauld
Erin-go-bragh
I know ye’re a Pat by the cut o yer hair
Bit ye aa turn tae Scotsmen as sune as
ye’re here
Ye’ve left yer ain countrie for brakin the law
We’re seizing aa stragglers fae
Erin-go-bragh
One nicht in Auld Reekie as I walked
doun the street
A saucy big polisman I chanced for
tae meet
He glared in ma face an he gied me
some jaw
Sayin “Whan can ye ower, bauld
Erin-go-bragh
Tho were I a Pat an ye knew it wis true
Or were I the devil, then whit’s that tae you?
Were it not for the stick that ye haud in
yer paw
I would show ye a game played in
Erin-go-bragh
Well, I’m not a Pat tho Irelan I’ve been
Nor am I a Paddy tho Irelan I’ve seen
Were I a Pat, that’s naethin ava
For there’s mony’s a bauld hero in
Erin-go-bragh
bauld – bold / nicht-night – one night
Auld Reekie – Edinburgh / polis – policeman
gied – gave / Paddy – Irishman mony’s – many a
haud – hold / napper – head freen – friend
shair – sure / twa – two / paid him stock-aninterest – paid him back fully with punches and
strikes / sae – so / gang – go / belang – belong
Hielans – Highlands
14
Then a lump o blackthorn that I held
in ma fist
Aroun his big bodie I made it tae twist
The blude fae his napper I quickly
did draw
An paid him stock-an-interest for
Erin-go-bragh
An the people cam roun like a flock
o wild geese
Sayin “Stop the daft rascal, he’s killt
the police”
For every freen I had I’m share he
had twa
It wis terrible hard times
for Erin-go-bragh
Sae I cam tae a wee boat that sails in
the forth
An I packed up ma gear an I steered
for the North
Fareweel tae Auld Reekie, yer polis an aa
An the devil gang wi ye, says Erin-go-bragh
ERIN-GO-BRAGH – Anon
Sae come
Aa ye people
whairever ye’re from
I don’t give a damn tae whit place
ye belang
I come fae Argyll in the Hielans
sae braw
Bit I’ll ne’er take it ill bein caad
Erin-go-bragh
Ross Kennedy – voice, guitar
Chris Agnew – acoustic bass
Marc Duff – whistle, bouzouki
John Martin – fiddle
This is a 19th-century song which was written in direct response to the
shameful abuse of Irish immigrants in Scotland. It reminds us that, for a
long time, institutional discrimination against the Irish was the norm. The
song is, quite simply, about a Highlander in Edinburgh who is mistaken for
an Irishman, mercilessly heckled into fighting a policeman to defend his
self-esteem and driven off from the town by a bigoted rabble. In essence,
the Highlander’s acerbic and defiant message is that, if this is what
Scottish society is all about – bigotry and contempt for one’s fellow man,
he would rather be taken for Irish. Appropriately, Erin-go-bragh is not
Irish Gaelic but Scots Gaelic for ‘Ireland forever’. In the late 19th-century it
was, significantly, emblazoned on the shirts of Hibernian F. C. which was
founded by Edinburgh Irishmen and the local Catholic church.
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15
The slave’s lament
It was in sweet Senegal that my foes did me enthral
For the lands of Virginia, -ginia O:
Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more,
And alas! I am weary, weary, O.
Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more.
And alas! I am weary, weary O!
All on that charming coast is no bitter snow and frost,
Like the lands of Virginia, -ginia O;
There streams for ever flow, and there flowers for ever blow,
And alas! I am weary, weary O!
There streams for ever flow, and there flowers for ever blow,
And alas! I am weary, weary O!
The burden I must bear, while the cruel scourge I fear,
In the lands of Virginia, -ginia O;
And I think on friends most dear with the bitter, bitter tear,
And alas! I am weary, weary O!
And I think on friends most dear with the bitter, bitter tear,
And alas! I am weary, weary O!
16
THE SLAVE’S LAMENT – Robert Burns
Emily Smith – voice
Aaron Jones – cittern
Frank Mclaughlin – small pipes
Richard Werner – djembe
One might view the song as an early attempt to articulate the feelings of those who felt, like
Jackie Kay centuries later, that the practice of slavery and concomitant brutality were ‘antiScottish’. In its own modest way, the Burns song reminds us of Kay’s painful descriptions: ‘A
people being cleared off their land, and taken from the Slave Coast, the Ivory Coast, the Guinea
Coast to a new land. Forced to board a ship and taken on a nightmare journey from Hell.
One third of African people did not survive the journey on ship where they were packed more
tightly than in a coffin. One African woman in three did not survive the first three years in her
new country. The death toll is inconceivable, the great black missing population thrown to the
sharks at sea’. In many respects Burns gave voice to overwhelming public opinion in favour of
banning the slave trade: the men of the Scottish Enlightenment, like William Robertson, John
Millar of Glasgow and Adam Smith, who wrote and spoke out against slavery; the principled
judges of the Court of Session who, like Lord Auchinleck, ruled in favour of Joseph Knight, an
escaped slave; valiant abolitionists like William Dickson of Moffat and over 60 anti-slavery
societies in Scotland; the 40 synods and Presbyteries of the Kirk of Scotland who petitioned
parliament against the heinous practice of slavery.
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17
WE’RE A JOCK TAMSON’S BAIRNS
Jock Tamson was a merry auld carle,
And reign’d prood king o’ the Dee;
A braw laird, weel-to-dae in the warl’,
For mony a fairm had he,
And mony a servant-maid and man,
Wham he met aft a year;
And fu’ prood and jolly he wav’d his haun
While they sang wi richt guid cheer.
Since Adam fell frae Eden’s bower,
And pit things sair ajee,
There’s aye some weakness tae look owre,
And folly tae forgie
And Jock would sit and chat sae prood,
And just afore he’d gang,
He’d gie advice and blessings gude
Till the roof and rafters rang
We’re a’ Jock Tamson’s bairns,
We’re a’ Jock Tamson’s bairns,
There’ll ne’er be peace till the warld again
Has learned tae sing wi’ micht and main
O! we’re a’ Jock Tamson’s bairns!
Chorus
Jock Tamson sat at the table heid,
And sipp’d the barley-bree;
And drank success tae the honest
and gude,
And heaven when they would dee.
But the tyrant loon, the ne’er-dae-weel,
The leear, the rake and the knave
The sooner they a’ were hame wi’ the deil,
Lod! The better for a’ the lave.
Then here’s tae you, and here’s tae mysel’,
Soond herts, lang life, and glee;
And if ye be weel as I wish you a’,
Gude faith, you’ll happy be.
Then let us dae what gude we can,
Though the best are whiles tae blame,
For in spite o’ riches, rank, and lan’,
Losh man! We’re a’ the same.
For, we’re a’ Jock Tamson’s bairns,
We’re a’ Jock Tamson’s bairns,
There’ll ne’er be peace till the warld again
Has learned tae sing wi’ micht and main
O! we’re a’ Jock Tamson’s bairns!
Chorus
18
carle – fellow / braw- fine / warl – world / prood – proud / barley-bree – whisky / loon – rogue
leear – liar / lod – lord / lave – rest / ajee – awry / owre – over / Gude faith – In truth / Losh - Lord
WE’RE A JOCK TAMSON’S BAIRNS – Joseph Roy / Fred Freeman (tune)
Ian Bruce – voice, bodhran
Aaron Jones – cittern
Richard Werner – djembe
There is probably no more archetypal or popular saying in Scotland to represent democratic
sentiments, the belief that we are all God’s children, all part of the human race. The Scottish
Gaelic version of the saying is extremely terse: ‘Clan MhicTamhais’. As to the derivation of ‘We’re
A Jock Tamson’s Bairns’, Rev John Thomson of Duddingston Kirk (1805-40) was widely known
to have referred to his congregation as ‘ma bairns’; but, that said, John Thomson is such a
common name in Scotland that it would have naturally lent itself to the expression. The song
itself was, appropriately, written in the later 19th-century by an Irish immigrant to Scotland
who, given his Scottish parentage, felt compelled to remind Scots of their democratic values.
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19
Scotland’s story
Michael McGrory from West Donegal
You came to Glasgow with nothing at all
You fought the landlord and the
Africa Korps
When you came to Glasgow with
nothing at all
Joseph d’Angelo dreams of the days
When Italian kids in the Grassmarket
played
They burned out his shop when the boys
went to war
But auld Joe’s a big man and he forgave all
Abraham Caplan from Vilnius you came
You were heading for New York but
Leith’s where you stayed
You built a great business which
benefits all
When you came to my land with
nothing at all
In Scotland’s story I’m told that they came
The Gael and the Pict, the Angle and Dane
But where’s all the Chinese and Indian
names?
They’re in my lands story and they’re all
worth the same
In Scotland’s story I read that they came
The Gael and the Pict, the Angle and Dane
But so did the Irishman, Jew and Ukraine
We’re all Scotland’s story and we’re all
worth the same
20
Christina McKay, I read of your name
How you travelled south from Delny
one day
You raised a whole family in one room
they say
And the x on the line stands in place of
your name
So in the old story I’ll bet that I came
From Gael and Pict and Angle and Dane
And a poor migrant girl who could not
write her name
It’s a common old story but it’s mine just
the same
All through the story the immigrants came
The Gael and the Pict, the Angle and Dane
From Pakistan, England and from the
Ukraine
We’re all Scotland’s story and we’re all
worth the same
Your Scotland’s story is worth just the same
Your Scotland’s story is worth just the same
SCOTLAND’S STORY – The Proclaimers
Nick Keir – voice
Chris Agnew – acoustic bass
Marc Duff – whistle, bodhran
Frank Mclaughlin – guitar
Richard Werner – djembe
This Proclaimers’ song is unique in viewing immigration as,
fundamentally, part of the Scotland story, from the Picts and the Gaels
through to the Chinese, Indians and Ukrainians. It is yet another version
of Hamish Henderson’s argument that Scotland is a ‘healthy hybrid’,
and we have only to appreciate the worth of all of its peoples.
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21
The Destitution Road
In the Year Of The Sheep and the
burnin’ time
They cut oor young men in their prime
The auld Scots way was a hangin’ crime
For the Gaels of Caledonia
There’s a den for the fox, a hedge for
the hare
A nest in the tree for the birds of the air
But in a’ Scotland there’s no a place there
for the Gaels of Caledonia
Chorus
But there’s no use gettin frantic
It’s time tae hump yer load
Across the wild Atlantic
On the Destitution Road
The bailiff came wi’ the writ and a’
And the gallant lads of the Forty Twa
They drove ye oot in the sleet and snaw
The Gaels of Caledonia
When yer hoose was burned and yer
crops as well
Ye stood and wept in the blackened shell
And the winter moor was a livin hell
For the Gaels o Caledonia
Chorus
22
The plague and the famine they dragged
ye doon
As ye made yer way tae Glesga toon
Where ye’d heard o’ a ship that was
sailin’ soon
For the shores of Nova Scotia
And ye sold yer gear, ye paid yer fare
Wi’ yer heid held high though yer hert
was sair
And ye bid fareweel forever mair
Tae the glens o Caledonia
Chorus
The land was cleared and the deal
was made
Noo a fremit lord in a tartan plaid
He struts and stares as the memories fade
O the Gaels of Caledonia
And he hunts the deer in the lanely glen
That yince was hame tae a thoosan men
And the wind on the moor sings a sad
refrain
For the Gaels o Caledonia
snaw – snow / Glesga toon – Glasgow / heid – head
hert – heart / sair – sore / fremit – foreign
lanely – lonely / yince – once / thoosan - thousand
THE DESTITUTION ROAD – Alistair Hulett
Dave Taylor – voice
Stevie Lawrence – dulcimer, bodhran, cittern
To a degree the song is merely a potted history of the clearances:
the clearing of the land to make room for more extensive
sheep farming; the bailiffs writs enforced by the 42nd Highland
Regiment and subsequent burnings of house and holding;
poverty and disease; the large waves of emigration to Nova
Scotia which, from 1773 onwards, saw thousands of Highlanders
settling in places like Pictou and Cape Breton; the intrusion of
foreign lords who would use the depopulated landscape for
hunting and other frivolous purposes. What is quite different,
however, is the emphasis on the Highlanders’ pride – the heid’s
‘held high’ – and the pertinacity of those who refused to be
defeated, even under hopeless circumstances. Hence the refrain:
‘But there’s no use gettin’ frantic / It’s time tae hump yer load’. In
this regard the song resembles Anne Home’s ‘Indian Death Song’
with its depiction of native pride in adversity.
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23
Indian death song
The sun sets in night, and the stars shun
the day,
But glory remains when their lights fade
away.
Begin ye tormentors, your threats are in
vain,
For the son of Alknomook will never
complain.
Remember the arrows he shot from
his bow,
Remember your chiefs by his hatchet
laid low.
Do you wait till I shrink from the pain
once again?
No! the son of Alknomook shall
never complain.
Remember the wood where in ambush
we lay,
And the scalps which we bore from
your nation away:
Now the flame rises fast; ye exult in
my pain,
But the son of Alknomook will never
complain.
24
I go to the land where my father is gone,
His ghost shall rejoice in the fame of
his son.
Death comes like a friend to relieve me
from pain,
And thy son, O Alknomook! shall never
complain.
The sun sets in night, and the stars shun
the day,
But glory remains when their lights fade
away.
Now the flame rises fast; ye exult in
my pain,
But the son of Alknomook will never
complain.
INDIAN DEATH SONG – Anne Hunter / Fred Freeman (tune)
Gillian Mcdonald – voice
Sandy Brechin – accordion
Historians like Tom Devine and Neil Davidson are now beginning to aver what Hamish
Henderson’s moving “Freedom Come All Ye” underlines: that Scotland has been both a victim
of imperialism and an imperialist power. Davidson argues cogently that ‘unless we look ‘the
Dark side’ full in the face we will fail to understand what needs to change in Scottish society’.
The abuse of the Native Americans in the USA and Canada is just another case in point. Tribes
like the Micmac in Nova Scotia were mercilessly displaced for capitalist gain; ironically, by
Highlanders who had themselves been displaced within living memory. Oppression breeds
further oppression. It is the lesson of history. Perhaps there is something of this message in
Anne (Home) Hunter’s moving, if dated, account of the American Indians and their stoical
pride. Hunter was an 18th-century poetess with Berwickshire connections; and, though, like
Burns, would have been influenced by ideas of ‘the noble savage’, she does bring feelings
of sympathy and protest to bear in her portrayal of the Indians’ last stand; especially if we
consider that the song was published in 1784. Hunter herself says that ‘We look upon the fierce
and stubborn courage of the dying Indian with a mixture of respect, pity and horror.’.
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25
doomsday in the afternoon
They traivelled the country aroond, each
season had its place
Then the walls and ditches came, behind
each a hostile face
Like the natives o the Amerikays piece by
piece their land was lost
The settled folk made their own laws tae
say what they did was just
Chorus
What you don’t realise or refuse tae
understand
Once it was the Travellers who had all
the land
You can move them on from lay-bys
You can chase them frae your toon
But the Travellers will be wi us till doomsday
in the afternoon
Chorus
26
There’s been meetings in Milngavie and
everyone agrees
Keep it well away from hooses and screen
it well with trees
And in case it should bring doon the price
o surrounding property
Pit the Travellers’ site anywhere you like
– as lang as it’s no’ near me
Chorus
The Queen welcomed Belle tae the Palace,
in her local she can’t get a hauf
We don’t serve dirty tinks in here, we soon
see that lot aff
In her local supermairket she heard twa
women say
I don’t know what the Queen was thinkin’,
gien a tink a medal onyway
Chorus
The Travellers were at Auschwitz, there
was Travellers at Belsen too
The Nazis treated the Travellers the same
way as the Jews
But history turns a blind eye and
remembers what it will
And for the Travelling People there is
no Israel
hauf – half measure of whisky
tink – a derogatory term for a traveller
Doomsday in the afternoon – John McCreadie
�
Steve Byrne – voice, guitar
Belle Stewart, the traveller mentioned in the song, was the recipient of the British Empire Medal
in 1981 for her outstanding contribution to culture. When asked, in 1986, when the travellers
would ‘cease to wander’, she replied: ‘Travellers will aye exist to the end o’ time, and you’ll never
get them to change their ways.. They’ll be there till doomsday in the afternoon. Her account
of the travellers is well documented in Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger’s ‘Til Doomsday in the
Afternoon and in her daughter Sheila’s Queen Amang the Heather: the life of Belle Stewart. As
the singer, Arthur Johnstone, states, the song relates true events – like the infamous meetings in
Milngavie in 1990 where people protested against council plans for a local travellers’ campsite.
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27
why dae they say i’m only a jew?
Why dae they say
Why dae they say
Why dae they say
What they say?
I’ve got a dad
Wi’ a hert pure as gowd
And a mither
Wi’ love sae divine
Christian or Jew
They’re baith jus the same
Though they hae
A different creed
Why dae they say
What they say
That they say
Why dae they say
What they say?
So why dae they say
That I’m only a Jew
When I’m yin o’ Gods
Ain man kind
Why dae they say
Why dae they say
Why dae they say
What they say?
Why dae they say
Why dae they say
Why dae they say
What they say?
Why dae they say
What they say
That they say
Why dae they say
What they say?
Why dae they say
That I’m only a Jew
And despise me
Because o’ my breed?
Christian or Jew
They’re baith jus the same
Though they hae
A different creed
Why dae they say
What they say
That they say
Why dae they say
What they say?
28
Why dae they say
What they say
That they say
Why dae they say
What they say?
Why dae they say
That I’m only a Jew
And despise me
Because o’ my breed?
baith – both / gowd – gold / mither – mother / yin – one / ain – own
WHY DAE THEY SAY I’M ONLY A JEW?
– Anon / Fred Freeman (tune)
Wendy Weatherby – voice, cello
Fred Freeman – backing vocals
This is a prime example of how much can be expressed in a simple
question. The song was often sung at the Palace Theatre, Glasgow
in 1905 by a Jewish comedian from the Gorbals. Whilst Jewish
people over the centuries were generally welcomed by the Scottish
populace, the large wave of Jewish immigration to Scotland after
the Russian pogroms, at the turn of the 19th-century, obviously
caused a degree of unease amongst the local population. The
same unease emerged in the 1930s with the influx of European
refugees who fled to Scotland for resettlement.
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29
Rivonia
They have sentenced the men of Rivonia,
Rumbala, rumbala, rumbala
The comrades of Nelson Mandela
Rumbala, rumbala, rumbala
He is buried alive on an island
Free Mandela, Free Mandela
He is buried alive on an island
Free Mandela, Free Mandela
Set free the men of Rivonia
Rumbala, rumbala, rumbala
Break doon the walls o their prison
Rumbala, rumbala, rumbala
Freedom and Justice, Uhuru
Free Mandela, Free Mandela
Freedom and Justice, Uhuru
Free Mandela, Free Mandela
Verwoerd feared the mind of Mandela
Rumbala, rumbala, rumbala
He was stifling the voice of Mandela
Rumbala, rumbala, rumbala
Free Mbeki, Goldberg, Sisulu
Free Mandela, Free Mandela
Free Mbeki, Goldberg, Sisulu
Free Mandela, Free Mandela
Power to the heirs of Luthuli!
Rumbala, rumbala, rumbala
The comrades of Nelson Mandela
Rumbala, rumbala, rumbala
Spear of the Nation, unbroken!
Free Mandela, Free Mandela
Amandla Umkhonto we Sizwe
Free Mandela, Free Mandela
The crime of the men of Rivonia
Rumbala, rumbala, rumbala
Was to organise fairmer and miner
Rumbala, rumbala, rumbala
Against baaskap, sjambok and kiri
Free Mandela, Free Mandela
Against baaskap, sjambok and kiri
Free Mandela, Free Mandela
30
RIVONIA – Hamish Henderson
Steve Byrne – voice, guitar, cittern
Wendy Weatherby – backing vocals
Rivonia is the name of a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa which lent its name to a
notorious trial that took place between 1963 and 1964. Ten leaders of the African National
Congress were tried for endeavouring to overthrow the iniquitous apartheid system.
Several of them are mentioned in the song - Govan Mbeki, Dennis Goldberg, and Walter
Sisulu; and it is noteworthy that standing trial alongside the condemned black people
were several white Jews and an Indian. The refrain, ‘Free Mandela’, refers, of course, to
Nelson Mandela, leader of the ANC, who served 27 years imprisonment on Robben Island.
Mentioned also is Hendrik Verwoerd who was Prime Minister during the Rivonia Trial. As
the song says, the struggle was against ‘baaskap’ (white supremacy) and the instruments
of torture: ‘sjambok and keerie’. In the forefront of the battle were the ‘Spear of the Nation’
(‘Umkonto We Sizwe’), the military wing of the African National Congress, and the ‘heirs of
Luthuli’: Chief Albert Luthuli, a former president of the ANC, and leader of the non-violent
protest against the pass laws (see ‘Hawks and Eagles’). ‘Amandla Umkhonto we Sizwe’
means power to The Spear of the Nation; and ‘Uhuru’ refers to The International People’s
Democratic Uhuru Movement which was created for the self-determination of Africans. In
1964 Hamish Henderson sent this song, ‘Rivonia’, to the freedom fighters of South Africa; it
was adopted by them and, in fact, fully acknowledged by Nelson Mandela himself.
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31
the sun rises bricht in France
The sun rises bricht in France,
And fair sets he,
But he’s tint the blink he had,
In my ain country.
It’s nae my ain ruin
That blins aye my ee,
But the bonny lass I left,
In my ain country.
The sunrise in Bordeaux
Is fair, fair tae see,
But it’s fairer yet by far
In my ain country.
Oh pleesure comes tae mony,
But sorrow comes tae me
Oh I left aa my hert
In my ain country.
Fu beinly lowed my ain hearth,
And smiled my ain Marie,
Oh I left aa my hert,
In my ain country.
I’m leal tae high heaven,
It’s aye been leal tae me,
And it’s there I’ll see ye aa
Frae my ain country.
32
bricht – bright / blins – blinds / fu beinly – abundantly / lowed – flamed
hert – heart / leal – loyal pleesure – pleasure / mony – many
THE SUN RISES BRICHT IN FRANCE – Alan Cunningham / Anon edit
John Morran – voice, bouzouki, guitar
Shona Mooney – fiddle
Richard Werner – djembe
After the unsuccessful 1715 and 1745 Rebellions, commissioners were appointed
in parliament to dispose of the estates of attainted Jacobites. It often took a whole
generation for the attainted to buy back their land, if they found themselves in a
position to do so. Many lived permanently in exile in France, Italy and Spain, the three
most devoutly Catholic countries of Europe, where they were reasonably well received.
Whilst these countries were, for many, quite familiar as places where Highland children
were often sent for education in Roman Catholic traditions, exile was never going to
be a happy condition. It was a constant reminder of the denial of individual freedom.
To my mind, this song brilliantly conveys the Jacobite’s despair in terms of a wholly
fresh image: the sun - which simply does not shine as brightly in the land of exile. It is a
colourful illustration of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s anti-Romantic assertion that ‘nature
always wears the colours of the spirit’. One’s mental and spiritual condition determine
his or her perception of the world.
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33
Both sides the tweed
What’s the spring-breathing jasmine
and rose,
What’s the summer wi’ all its gay train;
Or the plenty of autumn to those
Who’ve barter’d their freedom for gain?
Chorus
Let the love of oor king’s sacred right,
Tae the love of oor people succeed:
Let freenship and honour unite,
And flourish on both sides the Tweed.
Chorus
No sweetness the senses can cheer,
Which corruption and bribery blind;
No brightness that gloom can e’er clear
For honour’s the sun o’ the mind.
34
Chorus
Let virtue distinguish the brave,
Place riches in lowest degree;
Think him poorest who can be slave’
Him richest who dares to be free.
Chorus
Let us think how our ancestors rose
Let us think how our ancestors fell;
The rights they defended, and those
They bought with their blood we’ll
ne’er sell.
BOTH SIDES THE TWEED – James Hogg / Fred Freeman
(adaptation Hogg tune)
Emily Smith – voice
Marc Duff – recorder
Aaron Jones – cittern
Gillian Mcdonald – harmony vocals
Frank Mclaughlin – guitar
This original setting of the song, by James Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd,
is probably the most direct reaction to anti-Englishness in the entire
Scottish musical canon. As a Scottish Border shepherd, fiddler, songwriter and poet, Hogg was well aware of the cultural traditions shared
on both sides of the Scottish and English border. The song reminds us
that, whilst we must not forget the bravery of our ancestors in battle
and the loyalty of Scottish patriots over the centuries, it behooves us as
a nation to uphold the ultimate value of mutual respect. Dick Gaughan
restated this message in his modern re-working of the song. Here we
perform an adaptation of Hogg’s original melody.
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35
I am the common man
I am the common man
I am the fool, the despised
I am the brute and the slave
I am the tool in their eyes.
I am the common man
I am the builder of halls
I am the dweller of slums
I am the filth and the scourge
From the cradle to the grave
From the cradle to the grave
When depression comes
When winter depression comes
I am the common man
I am the hewer of coal
I am the tiller of soil
I am the serf of the seas
I am the fighter of wars
I am the killer of men
Born to bear and to toil
Born to bear and to toil
I am the common man
But masters of mine take heed
For you have put into my head
Many wicked deeds
36
Not for a day or an age
But again and again and again
And again and again and again
I am the common man
Born to bear and to toil
I AM THE COMMON MAN – Joe Corrie / Alan Reid (tune)
Ross Kennedy – voice, guitar
Chris Agnew – acoustic bass
John Martin – fiddle
For centuries Scottish miners were virtual slaves. They were bound to their masters
for life by a Scots law of 1606 and even excluded from the protection of the Scottish
Habeas Corpus Act of 1701. It was also common for their children to be bound for life
to the master at baptism by a practice known as arling. As a community, the miners
were socially ostracized; often shunned by the local church; prevented from even
having a Christian burial. It was not until a law of 1775 that men could legally enter
the mines as free men and, perhaps, not until the 19th-century that the full letter of
the law was implemented. It is no wonder that, given their history, miners’ conditions
remained appalling for more than a century after they had been declared free. Their
plight is graphically depicted in the poem by Joe Corrie (1894-1968), a Fife miner,
poet, playwright and journalist who took up the cause of the miners through his
writings. Recognised by T.S. Eliot as ‘the greatest Scots poet since Burns’, Corrie was
condemned in many literary circles for his socialist leanings. The Joe Corrie Centre at
Cardenden, Fife continues to pay homage to his memory.
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37
larkhall
The trees grow tall abune the wall that
keeps oot all the killjoys, and keeps in
all the cowboys,
The main street winds roon narrow minds
but it takes all kinds of people, some
even go tae chapel,
Bigotry pours oot the drains like blue
blood runs through the veins of princes,
and on Sundays,
Everybody goes tae church, it disnae cost
them very much tae worship, when the
pubs shut.
And they tell me that yince you’re ower
the wa,
It really isnae a’ that bad at aa, and a Free
Mason can really have a baa, in Larkhall,
up in Larkhall.
Drums and flutes, mairchin’ boots, purple
suits and banners, and that’s jist the
toon planners,
Songs are sung of battles won by every
Loyal son and daughter, lambs tae the
slaughter,
When everybody walks in pairs and every
step they take declares their hatred,
naethin is sacred,
God wears a fitba’ scarf and the sun sets
like an orange sash in the distance, but
they’re aa good Christians.
And they tell me that yince you’re ower
the wa,
It really isnae a’ that bad at aa as long as
yer name’s no John Paul, in Larkhall, up
in Larkhall.
abune – above / mairchin’ – marching / toon – town / naethin – nothing / fitba – football
aroon – around / richt – right / wrang – wrong / ain – own
38
The grass is green but it’s always been
and even the Queen of England cannae
change it, but ye can always paint it,
The pavement too would look bran’ new
red white and blue, just like the pailin’s
aroon the playground,
Where children learn what’s richt an
wrang frae the words they see spray
painted on the buildings,
and then their ain children, grow up jist
the very same wi an attitude that’s never
changed for decades, it’s jist a wee place.
But they tell me that yince you’re ower
the wa,
It really isnae a’ that bad at aa and the
distance tae the moon is very sma, in
Larkhall, up in Larkhall.
LARKHALL – Peter Nardini
Dave Taylor – voice, guitar
John Martin – fiddle
It was the historian, Neil Davidson, who
recently said that we could not hope to
progress as a society without looking at the
darker side of life in Scotland. In recent years
greater openness has led to artists like Jackie
Kay, James McMillan and others not only
expressing their commitment to Scotland
and Scottish culture but their dismay at
some of the ills of our society that still
persist. Peter Nardini is a very accomplished
Scottish artist and song-writer of Italian
extraction who here gives us a testimonial
in song based upon his growing-up in
Larkhall, Lanarkshire. Nardini is one of our
great song-writers who should be far better
known and appreciated.
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39
a man’s a man
Is there, for honest poverty
That hings his heid, an a’ that;
The coward-slave, we pass him by,
We daur be poor for a’ that!
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
Oor toils obscure, an’ a’ that,
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp
The man’s the gowd for a’ that.
What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an’ a’ that.
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
A man’s a man for a’ that.
A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke an’ a’ that!
But an honest man’s aboon his might
Gude faith, he mauna fa’ that
Then let us pray that come it may
As come it will for a’ that,
That Sense and Worth o’er a’ the earth
Shall bear the gree an’ a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
It’s comin yet for a’ that,
That man tae man the warld o’er
Shall brithers be for a’ that.
Ye see yon birkie ca’d a lord,
Wha struts, an’ stares, an’ a’ that,
Tho’ hundreds worship at his word,
He’s but a coof for a’ that.
A MAN’S A MAN – Robert Burns
Wendy Weatherby – voice
Sandy Brechin – accordion
Nick Keir – harmony vocals
This is both a revolutionary song, which might have seen
Burns arrested for sedition, and a restatement of that more
generalized Scots saying, ‘We’re a’ Jock Tamson’s bairns’.
Certainly, the egalitarian values expressed for a multicultural
Scotland are what was behind its singing at the reopening
of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. In a letter to George
Thomson, Burns himself claimed that the lyrics amounted to
‘two or three pretty good prose thoughts, inverted into rhyme’.
The song is a great deal more; its prophecy of universal
brotherhood is yet to be fulfilled.
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hings – hangs / gowd – gold / hamely fare – homely foods / hoddin grey – coarse woollen cloth
birkie ca’d – fellow called / coof – fool / aboon – above / gude – good / mauna fa’ that – must not be like
bear the gree – win the day / warld – world / brithers – brothers
41
The freedom come all ye
Roch the wind in the clear day’s dawin
Blaws the cloods heelster-gowdie owre
the bay
But there’s mair nor a roch wind blawin
Through the Great Glen o the warld
the day
It’s a thocht that will gar oor rottans
A’ they rogues that gang gallus, fresh
an gay
Tak the road, and seek ither loanins
For their ill ploys tae sport an play
Nae mair will the bonnie callants
Mairch tae war when oor braggarts
crousely craw
Nor wee weans frae pit-heid and clachan
Mourn the ships sailing doon the
Broomielaw
Broken faimlies in launs we’ve herriet
Will curse Scotland the Brave nae mair,
nae mair
Black an white ane-til-ither mairriet
Mak the vile barracks o’ their maisters bare
42
So come all ye at hame wi Freedom
Never heid whit the hoodies croak
for doom
In your hoose a’ the bairns o’ Adam
Will find breid, barley-bree an painted
room
When MacLean meets wi’s friens in
Springburn
A’ thae roses and geens will turn tae
bloom
And a black boy frae yont Nyanga
Dings the fell gallows o the burghers
doon.
roch – rough / dawin – dawning / cloods – clouds / helster-gowdie – head over heels
mair nor – more than / thocht – thought / rottans – rats / they – those / gallus – arrogantly
Ioanins – roads, paths / callants – youths / mairch – march / crousely craw – boldly croak
clachan – village / ane-til-ither mairriet – married to one another / maisters – masters
hoodies – scavengers / breid – bread / barley-bree – whisky/ friens – friends / geens – wild cherries
yont – beyond / dings – smashes
THE FREEDOM COME ALL YE – Hamish Henderson
Jim Reid – voice, moothie
Frank Mclaughlin – guitar, small pipes
Rod Paterson – harmony vocals, guitar
This has long been considered a candidate for Scotland’s national anthem and has, in fact,
taken its place alongside Burns’s “A Man’s A Man” as an international anthem of universal
brotherhood and peace. Widely sung in France, Italy, Ireland and America, it has been
acknowledged as a major inspiration by the great song-writers of the 20th-century, men like
Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan. The song is hardly a Romantic picture of Scotland. It is, rather,
a vision of a small country that can maturely recognize its past failings, its responsibility for
the ‘lands we’ve herriet’ as oppressors ourselves, and, at the same time, realize its potential,
with its great leadership, men like John Maclean, taking a leading role in the struggle for
‘Freedom’. The song is pregnant with rich imagery: the ‘roch wind’ of change that is blowing
through the ‘great glen o the warld’, the dividing lines between the races and religions;
‘Maclean wi’s freens in Springburn’, an image of industrial workers uniting in the struggle
for peace; the ‘hoose’ of freedom with its ‘breid, barley-bree and painted room’, offering
hospitality to all mankind – ‘a’ the bairns o Adam’; ‘a black boy frae yont Nyanga’, the
black South African township which was a centre for resistance in the 1960s, destroying the
oppressors’ ‘gallows’. As Henderson himself said, it expresses ‘my hopes for Scotland, and for
the survival of humanity on this beleaguered planet’.
NOTE : This track appears by kind permission of Greentrax Recordings. It was first released on the ‘Hamish
Henderson Tribute Album : A’ The Bairns o’ Adam’ (CDTRAX244, 2003, Greentrax Recordings Ltd)
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comin hame
44
�
Pit a light in the windae
Yer brither’s comin hame
Set a meal on the table
Yer brither’s comin hame
He’ll be tired and weary
Efter all these years alane
He’s comin hame, yer brither’s
comin hame
He’s been angry and afraid
Yer faither’s comin hame
He’s been hounded and betrayed
Yer faither’s comin hame
And wi every act o kindness
A seed o hope is sown
He’s comin hame. Your faither’s
comin hame
Bring her in frae the cald
Yer mither’s comin hame
Sit her doon by the fire
Yer mither’s comin hame
Mak her warm, mak her welcome
Afore the chance is gone
She’s comin hame. Your mither’s
comin hame
Chorus
Comin hame tae a place they’ve never been
Comin hame tae a land they’ve never seen
Comin hame tae a femlie they have never
known
A’ Jock Tamson’s bairns
Are comin hame.
Tak the chain frae the door
Yer sister’s comin hame
Open wide yer airms
Yer sister’s comin hame
Don’t leave her staunin there
Efter all the pain she’s known
She’s comin hame, your sister’s
comin hame
Chorus
Comin hame tae a place he’s never been
Comin hame tae a land he’s never seen
Comin hame tae a femlie he has never
known
A’ Jock Tamson’s bairns
Are comin hame
Frae Iraq and Zimbabwe
Yer femlies comin hame
And frae Turkey and Somalia
Your femlies comin hame
Seekin rest, seekin refuge
They have never known
They’re comin hame. Your femlies
comin hame
COMIN HAME – Steven Clark
Edit by Ian Bruce & Fred Freeman
windae – window / brither’s – brother’s / efter – after / airms – arms / alane – alone / staunin – standing
faither – father / femlie – family / cald – cold / mither’s – mother’s / afore – before
Ian Bruce – all voices
Stevie Lawrence – log drum
This contemporary song marks a fitting close
for the album with its call for a more inclusive
Scotland that lives up to its belief that we are
indeed ‘A’ Jock Tamson’s bairns’, all one family.
The song-writer, Steven Clark, avers ‘that some
branches of the family are getting a distinctly
frosty welcome’.
A note on the arrangements – The musical
arrangements throughout represent a dialogue
between the producer, Dr Fred Freeman, and
the players.
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THEY’RE COMIN HAME. YOUR FEMLIES COMIN HAME
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A very special thanks is due to The Heritage Lottery Fund and to The National Library of Scotland, without whose foresight,
persistence and support this CD would never have seen the light. Amongst the staff at the NLS I would especially like to thank
Beverley Casebow, Nat Edwards and Jackie Cromarty who assisted me at every turn. Laura Murphy helped in the early stages
of the project. Thanks too to Susan McIntosh of Scotdec; Richard Nicodème of Context, the graphic designer; Bruce Blacklaw
of the Library’s marketing department. Thanks too to Ian Green of Greentrax Recordings for generously granting permission
to use the Jim Reid ‘Freedom Come All Ye’ track which was first released on the Hamish Henderson Tribute Album (“A’ The
Bairns o’ Adam, CDTRAX244,2003, Greentrax Recordings Ltd). As always, I owe a very special thanks to Richard Werner of B & B
Studios, Edinburgh for his meticulous recording and editing; above all, for his informed musical opinion.
A NOTE ON THE CONTENT AND ARRANGEMENTS
From The National Library of Scotland’s extensive archives, particularly the collection of broadside ballads, chapbooks and
song-collections, I was able to carry-out the necessary research for the project and to draw upon a considerable number
of texts: amongst them, Robert Burns ‘A Man’s A Man’ and his ‘The Slave’s Lament’; James Hogg ‘Both Sides of the Tweed’;
Joseph Roy ‘We’re A’ Jock Tamson’s Bairns’; Anne Hunter ‘The Indian Death Song’; the anonymous ‘Why Dae They Say I’m
Only A Jew’ and ‘Erin-go-bragh’. Most of the remaining material is drawn from the splendid songs of the contemporary
Scottish folk movement. The musical arrangements represent a dialogue between the producer and the players.