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Highland Laddie

from Shower Chanteys by Chris Maden

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about

This is the oddest song on the album… but let me start with the boring stuff.

“Highland Laddie” is a walkaway or stamp-and-go chantey, according to Hugill, though it is also used as a halyard chantey. The tune is an old Scottish march, and there are a few significant versions. One tells the story of a Scottish lad who goes off to seek his fortune, often on a whaling vessel. A second is rhymed couplets, usually about specific places. A third, called “Donkey Riding,” is similar to the second, but with a three-line call and one-line response, instead of of the pairs of calls-and-responses that the first two have.

This version, you may note, is not quite any of those three…

At the top level of rewards for my Kickstarter backers was the opportunity to request a song, any traditional chantey, whether or not I already knew it. My primary backer, who is also an antiquarian, sent me a copy of Twenty Years Before the Mast by Charles Erskine, and told me to record something out of it. The book is full of mediocre poetry, often titled “Sailor’s Ditty.” There are however, two definite chanteys in chapter XVIII: “Highland Laddie” and “Fire Maringo,” both given as cotton-screwing chanteys.

… for more notes, see music.maden.org/index.php?title=Highland_Laddie

credits

from Shower Chanteys, released October 1, 2018

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Chris Maden Raymond, New Hampshire

Singer of traditional songs and other stuff.

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