#Scots Song

[paulinecordiner]

Well today was our last week in Aberdeen’s primary schools as tutors for SC&T Youth! Cornhill Primary School – thankyou for your amazing enthusiasm and wonderful singing!

Once again, pupils from three classes had 4 hours – only 4 hours! of tuition in penny whistle, clarsach, guitar and … Scots Song!

Despite my ever-worsening laryngitis, the pupils of P4, P4/5 and P5 learned to sing The Silver Darlings, The Fisherman’s Lassie and The Barnyards of Delgaty as well as learning all bout the history of the songs and how they describe life in the North East of Scotland. I’ve posted in greater detail about all of these songs in the past few weeks, but I’ve not yet posted about the songs the pupils have been learning for their grand finale! It is of course Billy Connolly’s The Wellyboot Song – which probably doesn’t need much of an introduction! One of the teachers managed to find this recording of Billy singing it in 1976 -which I can share here cos there’s no swearing!

Noo I’m aff tae nae spik for a wik!

[zhanteimi]

Hamish Imlach - Hamish Imlach

UK, 1966, Scottish folk / contemporary folk / Scots song

[adventuresofalgy]

Despite the beauty of the glistening droplets on the wet grasses and wildflowers, there is a limit to how much saturation of the tail feathers a fluffy bird can tolerate while drinking in the wonders of Nature… or should he say, bathing in them…

So, after exchanging greetings with a passing frog who evidently enjoyed the sodden conditions a great deal more than he did, Algy flew back up into the pine tree and made himself comfortable on a cushion of soft, aromatic pine needles, tucking his tail well into the heart of the tree and away from the rain.

There were now two robins singing somewhere nearby, indulging in a delightfully harmonious competition in the dense Scotch mist, and Algy could think of no better way of passing the time in such dreich conditions than by defying the weather with a song. The elegant counterpoint of his wee feathered friends reminded him of another more famous duet, which, as it happened to mention a pine tree, seemed particularly apposite, so without further ado Algy opened his beak as widely as he could and began to sing…

[In case the video link doesn't work, Algy thought you might like to know that he is singing The Trail of The Lonesone Pine, as made famous by one of the most celebrated comedy teams of all time, Laurel and Hardy.]

[squidcave]

feeling real normal about this song 👍

[leclercskiesahead]

Boogie Burgers

[burricane]

No offence but hearing the Doctor sing the skye boat song while crying was the most devastating thing Doctor Who has ever done sassenachs do NOT interact

[vananilla]

I recently (like 3hrs ago) got really into reign and there’s a thing about watching a series that’s from the early 2010s, because most songs are classics from that time, that nowadays simply can’t be used in series anymore because they’re too well known.

But like that a really specific point but there’s a thing abt feeling like you’ve gone back to early teenhood in one second.

[high-quality-tiktoks]

Wee scots song for ye (Star O the Bar)

[mikyapixie]

So I FINALLY watched Ultraman Rising with my mom & we loved it!!! I was able to fill my mom in on everything I know about Ultraman which isn’t much since it was really rare to be able to watch the show in America!!! We loved it I can’t believe the played Ultraman No Uta & did the original transformation sequence!!! I LOVED IT!!! I REALLY HOPE THEY MAKE A SEQUEL!!! THEY JUST GOT TO!!! So here’s a gif I made!!!

[bookymcbookface]

“For she’d met with books, she went into them to a magic land far from Echt, out and away…”

‘Sunset Song’ by Lewis Grassic Gibbon (James Leslie Mitchell)

[sleepy-stories]

[paulinecordiner]

Anither grand day today at Ashley Road Primary School! The P3, 4 and 5 pupils (2 classes of each!) are fair gettin on wi their class songs - The Fisherman's Lassie, The Barnyards O Delgaty and The Silver Darlings which I spoke about yesterday. (They're also learning a fourth song which everyone is to join in with, but more on that in another post!)

There are a few videos online, but I like this one the best - the recording is the original by Alastair McDonald and the film that has been put to the song shows old footage of the fishing fleets and the fish gutting lassies swiftly preparing the fish to be salted and packed into barrels. The pupils fair enjoyed watching it! https://youtu.be/LcHhSywE9pk?si=krGQ1GY4WYRqJMwG

[zhanteimi]

Ray Fisher – The Bonny Birdy

UK, 1972, Scottish folk / Scots song It’s hard to believe Fisher is backed on this album by such big names as Martin Carthy, because Ray, as lead, fills every corner of this music with her expressive vocals. I’m not much of a drone fan, but I like the hints at folk droning on this album. Of course, we’re talking Child Ballads here, so the subject matter is full of love and death.

[adventuresofalgy]

Of course it's always satisfying to be right when one makes a prediction, but in this case Algy rather wished that he could have remained unsatisfied, because it did indeed rain again. In fact it rained much of the night and most of the following day. And, in addition, his home was blanketed by the thickest, wettest, mistiest Scotch mist he had ever seen.

But a fluffy bird is rarely daunted, and so Algy hopped up into the shelter of a pine tree to study the view. Unfortunately, though, there was no view. Where there should have been rocky ridges there was nothing. Where there should have been islands floating in the sea there was nothing. Where there should have been a large expanse of sky there was nothing. Absolutely nothing at all. Even the stand of tall spruces a few metres away seemed to be fading out as he watched.

However, the robin was still singing its autumn song merrily nearby, notwithstanding the rain, (or, more accurately, withstanding it particularly well) and so Algy decided to follow its example and sing along:

When that I was and a little tiny boy, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, A foolish thing was but a toy, For the rain it raineth every day.

[Algy is singing the first verse of the Fool Feste's song from William Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night.]

[arcadianico]

I'll look for an actual translation because I did not understand Most of it and I don't want to make you translate everything to me, like I kinda got what was happening until like the middle of it and then I got really lost and confused, but I really liked the phonetic of it and the bits I understood, so here's some of the verses I found really pretty (I'll come back once I read a translated version)

Gathering her brows like gathering storm, Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

The souter tauld his queerest stories; The landlord's laugh was ready chorus: The storm without might rair and rustle, Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.

But pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed; Or like the snow falls in the river, A moment white—then melts forever; Or like the borealis race, That flit ere you can point their place; Or like the rainbow's lovely form Evanishing amid the storm.

isn’t the imagery just gorgeous. also yeah i love the phonetics of scots. id say i can read you some aloud so you can hear how it sounds if you want but i don’t think you can do voice messages on tumblr. i guess i could send a video or something.

the bloom is shed stanza is one of my favourites in the poem. i think it’s between that one, one at the dance of witches and the last stanza

[mqfx]

since I'm awake anyway. my ongoing list of possible titles