The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Swell o’ Scots song saluted
Ahead of his latest BBC Radio Scotland programme Sangsters, Newport-based broadcaster Billy Kay tells Michael Alexander why Scots song – including Tayside classics – is a national treasure.
As a founding member of the award-winning Scots folksong group Malinky, and a graduate of the School of Scottish Studies at Edinburgh University, Arbroath-raised musician, lecturer and author Steve Byrne is no stranger to traditional music and culture.
But in new BBC Radio Scotland radio programme Sangsters, which celebrates the power of the Scots language through its most beautiful songs, Steve says that some lyrics well up his emotions more than others.
One such line comes from Baltic Street by Angus poet Violet Jacob.
Steve, whose great grandfather was a “lemonade mannie” in Montrose, and lived around the corner from Baltic Street, feels “at home” when he sings the song – despite being brought to tears by the line, “In this auld toon o’ mine” which makes him think of his old granny.
However, it’s The Wild Geese, written by the late Jim Reid of Dundee, which he ultimately regards as his “personal anthem” and which he never tires of singing.
Originally a poem by Violet Jacob, set to music by Jim Reid, the song, which describes the way that the wild geese that beat the skies of Angus, Fife and beyond at this time of year, seems to convey a feeling of loneliness, Steve says.
And it’s a song that means a lot to Steve and his family as it’s been sung on occasions happy and sad in recent years.
“It’s a marker of the year that as I get older I find it poignant as well as uplifting. I don’t think I’ve heard any other combination of melody and lyric,” he says.
It’s a view shared by Newport-based broadcaster and Sangsters presenter Billy Kay, who was once asked to write the forward of Jim Reid’s book. He thought The Wild Geese was “arguably the greatest song of the 20th Century”.
Billy, a Scots language expert and author, has long advocated promotion of the Scots tongue.
“Scots song is a national treasure with lyrics and airs that play with the emotions and swell the heart,” he says.
“So beautiful are they, that the world has adopted songs like Auld Lang Syne, My Love is Like a Red, Red, Rose and Flow Gently Sweet Afton as their own.
“But here in Scotland they are also tied in with our Scots language, spoken by at least 1.5 million of us according to the last census.
“These programmes seek to show the importance of this living spoken language in our singers’ appreciation of the great tradition they belong to.”
Sangsters, a two-part programme which airs on December 19 and 26 respectively, celebrates the emotive power and beauty of Scots song in the company of some of the country’s finest traditional singers, who also discuss the importance they place on speaking Scots both for their performance and interpretation of the songs.
Billy explores the regional variations in Scots from Robyn Stapleton’s lilting Galloway Irish to the Doric of northeast quines Shona Donaldson, Iona Fyfe and Christy Scott, to John Morran’s braid Ayrshire tongue to the rich Angus dialect of Steve Byrne and Chris Wright.
“All of them illustrate their interviews with verses of songs that show the wealth of their local tradition and how that has contributed to the great national tradition they all enhance,” said Billy. Part 1: O Aw the Airts, BBC Radio Scotland, Wednesday Dec 19 at 1.32pm – repeated Dec 23 at 6.02am. Part 2: Fae Burns tae Bothy Ballads, BBC Radio Scotland, Wednesday Dec 26, at 11.02am – repeated Dec 30 at 6.02am, then available on the BBC iPlayer for 30 days worldwide.