12.3 Types of Scots song

This third section will give an overview of the different types of Scots song and ways in which they evolved or were used in Scottish society as a means of cultural expression, documenting events, or simply for storytelling or entertainment.

It should be stressed at this point that not all Scots songs are necessarily grand narrative ballads, but can also be simple short ditties; all these songs play a different role and function within their local context. This is underlined by the late Norman Buchan [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] , folk activist and former MP, wrote about Hamish Henderson’s collecting approach:

The main types of Scots song are:

• Classic ballads, or the Muckle sangs (aka ‘Child’ ballads)

  Longer narrative songs, usually with many short verses and a repeating chorus, often telling stories of historical events (although not always accurately), e.g. Sir Patrick Spens, Edom o Gordon, The Bonnie Hoose o Airlie. 305 of these were classified as distinct types in the 19^th century by Prof Francis Child, and a numbering system is used to help identify versions.

  The muckle sangs are considered of great importance not only because of their age – usually they have a history stretching back several centuries – but also because versions of the same stories are found in other European traditions and further afield. For example, the ballad of the Twa Sisters, where a jealous sister drowns her sibling in order to steal her lover, exists in Sweden as De Två Systrarne, with many of the same motifs and similar storyline.

• Bothy ballads

  Farmworkers’ songs, often satirical or comic, relating to life on particular farms, usually written between 1830 and 1890. More recent compositions from the 20^th century are of a more comical character, written for the stage or recording for public release. See the case study in section 4 for more information.

• Broadsides and chapbooks

  Cheaply printed versions of songs stretching back to the 1600s, these were mass-produced song lyrics that were an easy way for songs to spread amongst the population. The Scots Language Centre website’s Scots song section describes them as follows:

  • Broadsides and chapbooks have a long history over several centuries. Printed crudely and cheaply, broadsides were typically single sheets while chapbooks were folded into small pamphlets. They were sold by street criers, travelling 'chapmen', and by 'balladeers' at markets and fairs. […] They first came to prominence in 16th-century England, when they were known as 'blackletter' broadsides, owing to the gothic typeface used. With the growth in literacy and the industrial revolution, the demand for street literature increased, and song lyrics became readily available to the masses. (https://www.scotslanguage.com/ Scots_Song_uid65/ Scots_Song_Collections )

  These songs became known as broadside ballads, although ballad in this case usually just meant song. In Scotland, there were printers across the country who produced copies of these sheets, and the most famous of these was “The Poet’s Box” in Dundee, which existed into the 20^th century. The National Library of Scotland has a large collection of broadsides digitised online at http://digital.nls.uk/ broadsides/, and increasingly more institutions are making their collections available in digital form.  

• Children’s songs

  While playground songs and rhymes might seem short and insignificant, they are as valid a source of Scots song as any other. Several important collections have been made in Scotland. Schoolteacher James T. Ritchie collected songs sung in Edinburgh playgrounds of the 1950s and '60s, releasing two books, The Singing Street (1964) and The Golden City (1965). A film of the children at Norton Park School was also made and the children were recorded by the American folklorist Alan Lomax. The film can be viewed at the National Library of Scotland’s Moving Image Archive.

  Ewan McVicar has worked extensively in schools collecting and sharing children's songs, and has published several books, including Doh Ray Me, When Ah Wis Wee (2007) and ABC, My Grannie Caught a Flea (2011), as well as contributing to several websites including Scots Sangs fur Schools. Other collectors of note include Iona & Peter Opie, Emily Lyle, Norah & William Montgomerie, Hamish Henderson, Kenneth Goldstein and Jean Rodger.

• Homeland songs, songs of emigration or transportation

  Songs written about Scotland from across the sea, or of people about to depart Scotland. The Toon of Arbroath is an example of a man in exile reminiscing about his home town, that was also published as a broadside: http://digital.nls.uk/ broadsides/ broadside.cfm/ id/ 14898 Sometimes the leaving is not voluntary, e.g. Jamie Raeburn describes a man being transported for a crime he claims he did not commit: http://digital.nls.uk/ broadsides/ broadside.cfm/ id/ 15846

• Love and courting songs

  As in many other traditions, Scotland has a good store of love songs. They often involve a dialogue between two lovers with one describing the riches they can offer the other – or not, as the case may be, as in Hey Donal Ho Donal:

  • Oh I've nae gowd tae offer ye
  • For I've gaithered little gear
  • But we'll hae love an freedom
  • Gin ye'll follow me my dear

  Listen to a rendition by Barbara Dymock and Maureen Jelks.

  Songs such as The Rigs o Rye feature a lover’s test, where one partner tries out the other’s loyalty. Sometimes love songs originating in Victorian times are called ‘pastoral’ songs.

• Mouth music in Scots

  Usually comic lyrics used to support the rhythm of a dance tune, similar to port à beul (port = tune, beul = mouth) Gaelic-speaking traditions. The Smith’s a Gallant Fireman, Tail Toddle and Brose and Butter are all examples of lyrical mouth music in Scots. This is separate from diddling, which uses vocables rather than words to sing a dance tune, and has something of a parallel in canntaireachd in Gaelic (sometimes called cantering in Scots) which is a way of learning tunes, often bagpipe melodies, by mouth using particular sounds.

• Music hall songs

  Usually comic songs in Scots, with exaggerated characters, language and dress, sung and written by Sir Harry Lauder, Harry Gordon and others. Performed on the concert stage in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, these were often recorded on wax cylinders and gramophones for public consumption. Listen to Harry Lauder singing “Hey Donal!” in 1908, from the University of California at Santa Barbara Cylinder Audio Archive.

• Political and protest songs

  Scotland's history ensures that political and protest songs make good use of the Scots language. One of the most iconic is of course Robert Burns' song of equality and fraternity, A Man's A Man For Aa That, it was sung by Sheena Wellington at the reconvening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. The CND movement in Scotland was strongly led by songs and singers during the 1960s with new songs written by the Glasgow Song Guild, released on the recording Ding Dong Dollar, such as We Dinna Want Polaris. A song that has come back into currency in recent years is Hamish Henderson's song written originally for the Glasgow Peace Marchers in 1960, The Freedom Come-All-Ye.

• Songs of soldiers and war

  Songs of recruitment are very common, such as Twa Recruitin Sergeants, where young men are convinced to go off to join regiments as an alternative to their life in the countryside. Other songs give accounts of battles, such as the classic ballad The Battle of Harlaw, or 19^th century broadsides from the Napoleonic Wars. Jacobite songs also fall under this heading, although the songs are so numerous as to warrant a category on their own. More recently, Hamish Henderson's song The 51st (Highland) Division's Farewell to Sicily, recalls the troops leaving Sicily during the Italian campaign in World War II.

• Work songs

  Songs about weaving, mining, and songs of the sea amongst others. Mary Brooksbank’s Jute Mill Song, also known as Oh Dear Me, was written from phrases heard from fellow mill worker women in Dundee:

  • Oh dear me, the mill’s gaen fest
  • The puir wee shifters canna get a rest
  • Shiftin bobbins coorse and fine
  • They fairly mak ye wark for yer ten and nine
  • (Scottish Country Dancing Dictionary, The Jute Mill Song)

  Songs about weaving stretch at least as far back as David Shaw of Forfar (1776-1856) who wrote The Wark o the Weavers about handloom weaving. Mining songs go back several centuries, with The Collier Laddie already considered an old song when Robert Burns reworked it in 1792. Some songs relate to mining disasters, such as The Blantyre Explosion, a tragedy near Hamilton in 1877.

  The singer and songwriter Ewan MacColl, whose parents came from Auchterarder in Fife, sang many work-related songs and wrote several which became well-known through his radio ballads productions for the BBC in the 1950s, including The Shoals of Herring, Song of the Fishgutters, also called Come Aa Ye Fisher Lassies, from his ‘Singing the Fishing’ episode.