The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond

"The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond", or "Loch Lomond" for short, is a traditional Scottish song (Roud No. 9598) first published in 1841 in Vocal Melodies of Scotland.[3][4] The song prominently features Loch Lomond, the largest Scottish loch, located between the council areas of West Dunbartonshire, Stirling and Argyll and Bute. In Scots, "bonnie" means "pretty", often in reference to a female.

View of the Loch Lomond area, December 2005

The original composer is unknown, as is definitive information on any traditional lyrics.

Lyrics

By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes,
Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond,
Where me and my true love were ever wont to gae,
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond.

Chorus:
O ye'll tak' the high road, and I'll tak' the low road,
And I'll be in Scotland a'fore ye,
But me and my true love will never meet again,
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond.

'Twas there that we parted, in yon shady glen,
On the steep, steep side o' Ben Lomond,
Where in soft purple hue, the highland hills we view,
And the moon coming out in the gloaming.

Chorus

The wee birdies sing and the wildflowers spring,
And in sunshine the waters are sleeping.
But the broken heart it kens nae second spring again,
Though the waeful may cease frae their grieving.

Chorus
O ye’ll tak’ the high road and I’ll tak’ the low road,
And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye.
But me and my true love will never meet again,
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond.

Interpretation

Historian Murray G. H. Pittock writes that the song "is a Jacobite adaptation of an eighteenth-century erotic song, with the lover dying for his king, and taking only the 'low road' of death back to Scotland."[5] It is one of many poems and songs that emerged from Jacobite political culture in Scotland.[5]

Andrew Lang

About 1876, the Scottish poet and folklorist Andrew Lang wrote a poem based on the song titled "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond".[6][7] The title sometimes has the date "1746" appended[8][9]—the year of the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie's rebellion and the hanging of some of his captured supporters. Lang's poem begins:

There's an ending o' the dance, and fair Morag's safe in France,
And the Clans they hae paid the lawing,

Morag—great one in Gaelic—referred to Bonnie Prince Charlie, who fled to France after his forces were defeated.[10] Lawing means reckoning in Scots. The poem continues:

And the wuddy has her ain, and we twa are left alane,
Free o' Carlisle gaol in the dawing.

Wuddy means hangman's rope, according to Lang's own notes on the poem; dawing is dawn.[11] The poem continues with the song's well-known chorus, then explains why the narrator and his true love will never meet again:

For my love's heart brake in twa, when she kenned the Cause's fa',
And she sleeps where there's never nane shall waken

The poem's narrator vows to take violent revenge on the English:

While there's heather on the hill shall my vengeance ne'er be still,
While a bush hides the glint o' a gun, lad;
Wi' the men o' Sergeant Môr shall I work to pay the score,
Till I wither on the wuddy in the sun, lad!

"Sergeant Môr" is John Du Cameron, a supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie who continued fighting as an outlaw until he was hanged in 1753.[11]

Arrangements and recordings

"Loch Lomond" has been arranged and recorded by many composers and performers over the years, in several genres ranging from traditional Scottish folk to barbershop to rock and roll.[4]

Ralph Vaughan Williams made an arrangement for baritone solo and unaccompanied male choir in 1921. It has been recorded several times, notably by the tenor Ian Partridge and the London Madrigal Singers for EMI in 1970.[12]

Scottish folk-rock band Runrig have made the song their unofficial anthem, closing their concerts with a rendition for over 25 years. They also had a top ten hit with a re-recorded version in 2007, released for BBC Children in Need.[13][14] Two verses of the song and the chorus are now a favourite anthem of the supporters of the Scotland rugby team at Murrayfield. Possibly taking a cue from Runrig, and sung at a faster marching pace, the original sad lament is enthusiastically bellowed out by thousands of Scots to celebrate a score and to spur on the team.[15]

In rock n roll, AC/DC, the Mudmen, and Scottish-Canadian punk band The Real McKenzies have recorded versions of "Loch Lomond", and the band Quadriga Consort have, like Runrig, performed it as the final song at concerts. Bill Haley & His Comets recorded it in 1957 for the album Rockin' the Oldies, but never made it onto the album. It was eventually released by Decca as "Rock Lomond" in August 1958 on the album Rockin' the Joint.

The Irish variant of the song is called "Red Is the Rose" and is sung with the same melody but different (although similarly themed) lyrics.[16] It was popularized by Irish folk musician Tommy Makem. Even though many people mistakenly believe that Makem wrote "Red Is the Rose", it is a traditional Irish folk song.[17]

The melody was adopted by Cologne band Höhner in their song "Mer ston zo dir FC Kölle", the Anthem of 1. FC Köln. The song is sung by the fans before each home game.

Mark Knopfler has performed an instrumental version live, usually as an intro to his song "What It Is".

In the 1955 Disney animated classic Lady and the Tramp, one of its characters, Jock, a Scottish terrier, renders his own version of "The Bonny Banks Of Loch Lomond" when collecting his bones "in the back yard".

In his 1955 album Noël Coward at Las Vegas, Noël Coward sings his own personal version of "Loch Lomond".

Jazz

The Jazz Discography, an online index of studio recordings, live recordings, and broadcast transcriptions of jazz – as of May 22, 2019 – lists 106 recordings of "Loch Lomond" and one recording of "Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond".

A notable big band version of "Loch Lomond", arranged by Claude Thornhill, was recorded in a live performance on January 16, 1938, by the Benny Goodman and His Orchestra on the album, The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert, on January 16, 1938, featuring Martha Tilton on vocals (Columbia SL 160).

Jazz singer Maxine Sullivan, for whom it was a career-defining hit, recorded it at least 14 times:

Her first on August 6, 1937, with Claude Thornhill (piano), Frankie Newton (trumpet), Buster Bailey (clarinet), Pete Brown (alto sax), Babe Russin (tenor sax), John Kirby (bass), and O'Neill Spencer (drums) (matrix 21472-1; Vocalion-OKeh 364); and
Her last, in a live performance at the Fujitsu-Concord Jazz Festival in Tokyo, on September 28, 1986, with the Scott Hamilton Quintet. It was her second to last recording.[18] She died 6 months later, on April 7, 1987.

Notes

Biographical notes
  1. Marie Morrisey Keith, aka Mamie Keith, aka Mrs. Roy Keith (née Marie Louise Bosse; aka Bosseé; 1886–1965), formerly a contralto from Flatbush, Brooklyn, who also was around 1938 was President and Director of the Women's Symphony Orchestra of Chicago, and from 1947 to 1951, was President of the National Federation of Music Clubs, through which, since 1952, an endowed Marie Morrisey Keith Scholarship is awarded every four years. She married twice, first, on November 16, 1910, in Flatbush, Brooklyn, to George Sims Morrisey (1878–1958); second, on June 12, 1920, in Egremont, Massachusetts, to Royden James Keith (1881–1955), a 1904 Stanford graduate and pioneer in phonograph business.

References
  1. "Chicago's Organized Women's Musicians Tire of Playing Second Fiddle Roles". Chicago Tribune. November 20, 1938. Part 3, p. 3. (accessible via Newspapers.com, subscription required).
  2. "Mrs. Keith, 78, Once Concert Star, Is Dead". Chicago Tribune. March 5, 1965. Section 1A, p. 7, col 5 (of 8). (accessible via Newspapers.com, subscription required).
  3. Vocal Melodies of Scotland
  4. Fuld, James Jeffrey (1966). The Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk. Crown. pp. 336 & 337. OCLC 637942931.
  5. Murray G. H. Pittock, Poetry and Jacobite Politics in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland (Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 136–137.
  6. "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond" see also; from The Poetical Works of Andrew Lang, ed. Mrs. Lang, four vols. (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1923): I, 55–56
  7. Andrew Lang (1844-1912) -- The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond
  8. Poems of Andrew Lang: THE BONNIE BANKS O' LOCH LOMOND
  9. Lang & Philipp 2000, p. 235.
  10. Am Baile - The Songs and Hymns of the Scottish Highlands. Part II Song 5
  11. RPO - Andrew Lang : The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond Archived 2009-01-29 at the Wayback Machine
  12. https://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=16835
  13. "Official Singles Chart Top 100 18 November 2007 - 24 November 2007". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  14. "Official Scottish Singles Sales Chart Top 100 18 November 2007 - 24 November 2007". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  15. TV or radio broadcasts of any Scotland home game at Murrayfield from 2017, and possibly earlier
  16. "Red is the Rose". Jennifer Tyson. Retrieved 2013-08-03.
  17. Raymond Crooke (2009-01-12). "690. Red is the Rose (Traditional Irish)". YouTube. Retrieved 2013-08-03.
  18. "Flow Sweetly, Sweet Rhythm: The Maxine Sullivan Story". By Jan Souther (pseudonym of Rev. Thomas Francis Carten, C.S.C., Alumni Chaplin, Kings College; born 1942), The Sunday Voice (magazine of the Citizens' Voice). June 15, 2008, p. D6 (accessible via Newspapers.com (subscription required))
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