Burns' Night 2022

Robert Burns

It was a cosy early Burns' Night before a blazing fire. Who am I kidding, but with unseasonably mild weather I'm not complaining either. I've had my haggis and tatties and neeps since then, have you? We met on Friday to sing Scottish songs, and with a little poetic licence here and there that's what we did.

MC Colin went against tradition and asked Simon to start the evening which he did, with an actual Burns song, or at least one of those he collected and changed to be his own, Ye Jacobites by Name (roud V31021). Colin kept it Burns with Such A Parcel Of Rogues In A Nation (roud V31022 - sequential roud numbers no less!).

Most of the remaining songs were Scottish, though not all Burns by any means. I will mention some of the more eccentric or less Scottish ones.

Colin brought out his customary ode to the chieftain of the pudding race, no not Address to a Haggis (Robert Burns) but Captain Beaky's offering: Haggis Season (Jeremy Lloyd, Jim Parker).

Simon's regular song, The Handweaver and the Factory Maid (roud 17771) is generally accepted to be from either Lancashire or Ireland. The version Simon got from the singing of Sylvia Barnes is clearly based in Glasgow. Whether it is traditional or Sylvia's own rewrite we do not know, but Roud doesn't list a Scottish version.

Colin borrowed from the repertoire of The Smothers Brothers the song Eskimo Dog (Dick Smothers, Tom Smothers), replacing "North Pole" in the first line of the first verse with "Scotland". The song is a parody of Whiskey in the Jar (roud 533).

Colin's A Scottish Holiday (JW "Bill" Hill) is a parody of The Road to the Isles (roud 32843). We learn that Bill is a retired local government officer who also worked in the field of education. He wrote some of the funniest songs to have come out of Scotland before retiring from the music circuit due to family commitments. He is now an Edinburgh tour guide.

It fell to Simon to close the evening which he did with what on the face of it is an Irish Song. Wild Mountain Thyme was written by France McPeake, but it is based on The Braes of Balquhither (roud 541) by Scottish poet Robert Tannahill (1774–1810) and Scottish composer Robert Archibald Smith (1780–1829).

Now listen to a selection of songs sung during this session.

(Number of people present - 2 of whom 2 performed)