I'm posting a song a day from the Rise Up Singing songbook, which you may or may not know. It's a pretty invaluable resource for song leaders, and useful for anyone who likes to sing in groups. The book doesn't include the melodies to the songs, just the lyrics and some chords, so I’m trying hard to find the tunes I don’t know, learn them, and post them on YouTube for anyone to learn. That’s where these videos are hosted; the blog is just pretty packaging.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Aikendrum
From a much-altered Scottish folk song, apparently.
Rise Up Singing chapter: Play, p.166
D G D A7 / D G DA7 D
This appeared in my childhood on yet another Raffi album. But in quickly looking up its origins according to the internet, I found what must be the lyrics to the Scottish song in question, attributed not to a figure lost in the mists of time, as Rise Up Singing suggests, but to James Hogg (1770-1835). On the other hand, I think it likely that, like everyone else those days, he just grabbed an existing tune and maybe even just altered existing lyrics to come up with his politicised version, which may be why Rise Up Singing lists no author.
Links to those lyrics are here:
http://musicanet.org/robokopp/scottish/aikndrum.htm
and here:
http://scotsindependent.org/features/singasang/aikendrum.htm
The second page names the tune as being the same as "Ye Jacobites By Name", a tune I happen to know, so without being absolutely sure whether the two go together, I think I may just record a mix & match version and see if it works. Check back tomorrow for that
"There was a man lived in the nude?" That sounds like Matt Vaughan...
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