The Kintyre Forum

Life is a bed of roses
A perpetual garden of eden
War and want are things long gone
And I am King Gustav, of Sweden

(fragment of a local song)

That fragment seems to have captured the beauty of Campbeltown. I really enjoyed that song.

can i not leave you lot alone for five bloody minutes, its a good kick in the @rse the pair of you are needing.


that fragment of an old song, conjures up the closeknit unity of a family, poor yet happy, tired from a long day on the shore picking the whelks, the mother chastising two of her children for fighting over a prime spot, the rocks heavy with the whillucks, the tide fast approaching as the mother bids her flock to gather together the baskets they've filled and make their way back up the shore towards their humble croft, the blackhouse perched on the corner of broad st. she has children to feed and put to bed, her days work not yet done as she waits for her man to return from the sea, his baskets of longlines, with sharp barbed hooks have still to be baited with clabby doos, ready for the next morning, when in the dead of night with the moon not yet up, he must leave once more and rerurn to the cruel sea, only then can she rest, she does not sleep, but lies, and listens to the wind blowing thru the gaps in the walls, trying hard not to picture her man, pitching and tossing(childrens game, involving the throwing of coins) on the open sea. then, in the last minutes of the small hours as she drifts off into a bone weary slumber, a childs cry wakes her and a new day begins.


see, any bugger can be an author, how long did that take? two maybe three minutes, less if icould type faster!!!

now behave!!!!

hugh wrote:Life is a bed of roses
A perpetual garden of eden
War and want are things long gone
And I am King Gustav, of Sweden

(fragment of a local song)

Not one that I am familiar with Hugh.Definitely never heard my Mum singing that,maybe you could post the entire song?Would be interesting to see how it ties into the locality.

the song i was referring to relates to the @rse kicking, as this was what the mother said to her two offspring, just so you don't get confused, i've never heard hugh's song either, but then unless it has a line about grey rocks in it, its not a local song i would have heard, not coming from drumblemmin

bill wrote:Sweet Island Davaar

The sun was just leaving the top of yon mountain
When appeared there in splendour a bright and evening star.
As I carelessly wandered to the foot o' yon mountain
And roon the grey rocks o' Sweet Island Davaar.

It is well I remember the Island and Dhorlin
And doon by Kilkerran, where oft I did roam,
And tae drink at the well at the foot o' Benghullion,
And roon the grey rocks o' Sweet Island Davaar.

It's goodbye to Argyllshire, the Land o' my Sires,
It's I'll think o' thee though we're many miles apart;
And tae bless the happy days that we spent in Kintyre,
And roon the grey rocks o' Sweet Island Davaar.

Thanks Bill. I've been looking for the words for ages.

"...captured the beauty of Campbeltown..". Thank you, Wandering Dragon, I'm touched.
Bill. You must have heard it, surely? It's from that soul-searching balllad based on an old sea shanty, entitled
"The Meaning of Life".

Now the meaning of life, whatever it is
Has nothing to do with eternal bliss,
Holy candles consumed by fire,
Or tired work-horses stuck in the mire

Now the meaning of love, whate'er it may be
Is not explained in poetry
Wordsworth, Shakespeare, all those poets
Wrote about love, but they couldn't show it

Life is a bed, etc. (it's the middle-8 bit(that's a technical term ))

Now the moral of this lyric, the moral of this song
Is if you've got to go, don't be gone too long
Don't do anything you can't later deny
And never pee in the water supply

i hope thats got a good tune, cos the lyrics are pure urine, and i'm damned if i can link it to anywhere nevermind the town, i've been searching for years for a reason for my insomnia, my mother probably sang that tripe to me as a child.

no offence to any composers either living or dead, no animals were harmed during the typing of this message

Still trying to figure out where King Gustav fits in?

i've got a three book deal on the strength of my posting yesterday

only downside is its three books of six, not twelve and they are second class not 1st!!!

you win some, you lose some

The song was found on a yellowing manuscript in an old copy of a Harry Potter novel when they were clearing
out the shelves of the old library. It was apparently written by an old Kintyre fisherman, Jonah Branesell(?),
who sailed the high seas in search of the great white clabby doo. Returning unsuccessfully, with a heavy heart
and a loogy leg, he gathered his family (including the two new kids whose faces he couldn't quite place) around
him and poured out his heart to them in the form of this song. Anyhoo, that was way back in the 1980's, at
least. Surely there are some more up to date songs with a local connection that manage to tear themselves
away from the foot o' yon mountain? Are there no local songwriters anymore? (wee bit of credit, surely, for
getting it seamlessly back on thread?)

there are two more recent songs i can think of, one i liked a lot till i'd heard it a thousand times the other i heard hot off the press one morning and couldn't stop laughing the whole way thru it, if theres was an ivor novello for most contrived song it would win hands down, i won't name the writer as both songs were written by the same person and everybody is allowed an off day or two.

that and i don't want to get the "lets see if you can do any better" challenge, that would end up equally contrived and probably sound worse, i'm sure there must be a few spontanious compositions floating about somewhere?

Two newer songs which spring to mind are "Harbour Wall" by Kenny Gilchrist (actually Kenny has a few good ones up his sleeve) and "Innans Bay" by Alasdair Moffat which uses the central image of the grave of the unknown sailor to great effect.

you need to know the back story to harbour wall otherwise it too comes across as being contrived

i did once see lyrics to a song about the antares but it like another sea disaster within living memory are subjects best left for another generation to write about, still a bit too fresh in the memory of a lot of people, myself included