Songs I Love: Billy Bragg – Both Sides the Tweed

This is Billy Bragg’s version of a song first recorded by Dick Gaughan back in 1979 after the defeat of the first Scottish Devolution Referendum. The original song was written or collected by James Hogg (aka The Ettrick Shepherd) and published in The Jacobite Relics of Scotland as Song LXXV (page 126).  It appears to date back to or possibly recall the 1707 Treaty of Union between Scotland and England.

What Dick Gaughan has done is alter the lyrics to give them a more contemporary Scottish Republican feel and put his own tune to the song. However even if he is singing the “original” ¹ tune to a song it often feels as if he has put his own tune to it so that is not really a surprise. His lyrics and interpretation of what the song is about can be found here.

The song can be sung as a lament/rant against those who, as was felt then, sold Scotland’s freedom to clear their debts from the Darien Scheme. But it is also be a plea for tolerance and understanding between peoples

Let friendship and honour unite And flourish on both sides the Tweed.

There is a lot of history and emotion in this song. And although I think that Billy Bragg and Dick Gaughan were on the wrong side of the Referendum debate they are both on the correct side when it comes to the debate about humanity.

This is a version by Dick Gaughan from 1989; The fiddler is Aly Bain, the Keyboard player is Phil Cunningham

1. Most traditional folk songs don’t really have an *original* tune as the tune has  usually been lost or become so altered by passing the song from one singer to another that the original composer, if there was one, would not recognise their song. Many  traditional songs are composites of other songs, to a certain extent like Both Sides the Tweed. Some songs, however do have an accepted tune that they are normally sung to.

Songs I Love: Dick Gaughan – The 51st (Highland) Division’s Farewell to Sicily

Was this song made for the singer or was Dick Gaughan born to sing this song? The first time that I heard him sing it the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. The mix of his voice, the song itself, and his unique ability to get a bagpipe like quality out of his guitar make this something extaordinary

The late Hamish Henderson wrote the song. During the Second World War he was an intelligence officer attached to the Eighth Army, of which the 51st was a part. Following on from the desert campaign in North Africa they took part in the invasion of Sicily.
He wrote the song, while watching the troops preparing to leave the island. They were going back to the UK to prepare for the D-Day invasion. Henderson was going to Italy in part to work with the Partizans fighting Mussolini and Hitler. The pipe band were playing the tune “Farewell to the Creeks”, (a popular pipe tune written by Pipe Major James Robertson) and according to his account the words of the song came almost ready formed as he fitted them to the music. The lyrics are in a Scots dialect and slightly obscure to non-natives. Some words may even be slightly obscure to other Scots who speak a different dialect. Helpfully Dick Gaughan publishes the lyrics and a Scots-English dictionary on his website.

Dick Gaughan also recorded an earlier version on his album “Kist of Gold”