Today I woke up HERE and NOW and in SUNNY CALIFORNIA and WOO HOO USA! Up and at ’em! First, read the news headlines …. By the end of my first cup of coffee I was ready to escape right back to Scotland — a proud country with a proud heritage. And it keeps its own songs alive, with practically no help from anyone, among the hearts of its own people. They sing these songs even today, in pubs and parties and schools all over Scotland, even when they know — BECAUSE they know — that both sides in whatever bloody battle they’re singing about were equally daft. Adaptive re-use? The Long View…?

First, the hilarious “Laird o’ Cockpen,” by saucy Lady Nairne, deftly done by Anne Lorne Gillies.

The laird o’ Cockpen, he’s proud an’ he’s great,
His mind is ta’en up wi’ the things o’ the State;
He wanted a wife, his braw house to keep,
But favour wi’ wooin’ was fashious to seek.

Down by the dyke-side a lady did dwell,
At his table head he thocht she’d look well,
M’Leish’s ae dochter o’ Clavers-ha’ Lea,
A penniless lass wi’ a lang pedigree.

His wig was weel pouther’d and as gude as new,
His waistcoat was white, his coat it was blue;
He put on a ring, a sword, and cock’d hat,
And wha could refuse the laird wi’ a’ that?

He took the grey mare, and rade cannily,
And rapp’d at the yett o’ Clavers-ha’ Lea;
‘Gae tell Mistress Jean to come speedily ben, –
She’s wanted to speak to the laird o’ Cockpen.’

Mistress Jean she was makin’ the elderflower wine;
‘An’ what brings the laird at sic a like time?’
She put aff her apron, and on her silk goun,
Her mutch wi’ red ribbons, and gaed awa’ doun.

An’ when she cam’ ben, he bowed fu’ low,
An’ what was his errand he soon let her know;
Amazed was the laird when the lady said ‘Na’,
And wi’ a laigh curtsie she turned awa’.

Dumfounder’d was he, nae sigh did he gie,
He mounted his mare – he rade cannily;
An’ aften he thought, as he gaed through the glen,
She’s daft to refuse the laird o’ Cockpen!

Next the immortal Annie Laurie, sung by the immortal Jean Redpath, on Prairie Home Companion. A bit poignant: she invited the Americans to sing along, none knew it. You do, though, sing along.

Noel at his most droll. Enroll:

Crank up the volume for two from the Corries. First, ‘Bonnie Dundee’ takes the side of the Viscount Dundee, Lord Claverhouse (Clavers in Scots), the King’s Man, as he rides out from Edinburgh through the West Port (“the bells they ring backwards…) to put down the Jacobite uprising. [Note that the pert lassie who refused the Laird o’ Cockpen was a poor relation, who lived at Clavers-ha-Lea, the country estate.] Dundee kicked the Highlanders in the sporran that day, but Dundee himself was killed right at the moment of victory — a Cavalier martyr. Charmingly, this was first broadcast the week I arrived: September 24, 1984. I might have listened to it, unpacking. I probably did.

Sir Walter Scott wrote the poem in 1825. I add a few interesting stanzas not usually sung, about the social and class and religious geography of the City. The “godly plants of the Bow” were the smug white-lace-collar rich Presbyterians, and the Whigs in the Grassmarket were the more or less non-religious workaday artisans who just want their potholes filled. Both parties, for their own reasons, despised both the Jacobite Highlanders, and the overweening English-Dutch Sassenachs. Either way, the Toun was glad to be rid of the charming, powerful, dangerous Dundee.

Tae the lairds o’ Convention ’twas Claverhouse spoke
Ere the King’s crown go down, there are crowns tae be broke;
Now let each cavalier wha loves honour and me
Come follow the bonnets o’ bonnie Dundee.

Chorus: Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can,
Come saddle my horses and call out my men.
And it’s ope the West Port and let us gae free,
And we’ll follow the bonnets o’ Bonnie Dundee!

Dundee he is mounted, he rides doon the street,
The bells they ring backwards, the drums they are beat,
But the Provost, (douce man!), says;’ Just e’en let him be
For the toon is weel rid of that de’il Dundee.’

As he rode down the sanctified bends of the Bow
Ilk carline was flyting and shaking her pow;
But the young plants of grace they looked couthie and slee,
Thinking, ‘luck to thy bonnet, thou Bonny Dundee!’
Come fill up my cup, etc.

With sour-featured Whigs the Grassmarket was crammed,
As if half the West had set tryst to be hanged;
There was spite in each look, there was fear in each e’e,
As they watched for the bonnets of Bonny Dundee.
Come fill up my cup, etc.

— Sir Walter Scott, ‘Bonny Dundee’

The Corries then get our blood all fired up for the other side in the same war! That’s Scotland for you. Robbie Burns puts our sympathy with the Jacobite Highlanders, who don’t want the Protestant Dutchman William of Orange for their king. The POV is as of a defeated Highlander with PTSD, angered by the cocky tavern antics of a young man who hasn’t seen blood. “I saw the Devil and Dundee on the braes o’ Killiecrankie-o.”