Words and music

From here you can find sets of words to songs which I happen to like, or have been asked to transcribe, together with some sound clips or guides to playing where the tune is well enough known. Please note that these may vary a great deal from whatever you are familiar with. Do not expect to find a transcription of The Corries here - fine performers, but they jumbled up the order of verses, shortened songs, missed out boring bits, repeated the good bits etc. I do the same, but my intention is always to keep a coherent story, and to understand the meaning of (and reason for) the original words.

• Both Sides the Tweed - a wonderful song by Dick Gaughan, very timely with the forthcoming Scottish parliament. Get hold of a recording to learn it. It is hard to catch all of Dick's words clearly even when you hear him live, as he's borrowing an archaic style (c.1720) and has a strong inflection. If my transcription is incorrect, please let me know. This song is Dick's copyright and no permission has been sought to work out the words and put them here. You will not hear this song played very often in Scotland because most singers have too much respect for Dick to attempt it.
• The Water is Wide - correctly titled Waly, Waly. If you like this song, read my text of it and weep. Sorry. I had no idea the commercial versions were so sentimental and corrupted compared to the original. These are the proper words, with an explanation. The words you probably know are in a 20th century idiom. Stick to them, it's what you audience expects.
• The Broom o' the Cowdenknowes - ditto! These are the words from the Lyric Gems of Scotland. OK, you sound really silly to most modern international audiences if you try to sing this in the original. I have therefore done a plain English transliteration which more or less keeps the exact sense of the 18th-century Scots. For this I will be forever damned.
• The Wedding o' Westfield. This is the latest song I have conflated, with some care and some irresponsibility, from the Greig Duncan Collection. I have done this specially for this website, to see what you think, with a very brief 152Kb MP3 sound clip and small, rough sounding RealAudio file. I really like this song, so I've cobbled together the most singable verses from a dozen different versions, kept the story intact, and given you a way of customising it for playing in America (or anywhere else abroad from Scotland).

Later on I hope to add some of my own material, as I write both short personal songs and narrative ballads or longer songs on rather larger themes. However, I have taken no steps to protect any of this material yet and it has been pointed out to me that they should be copyrighted before releasing any words or arrangements.