Jim Malcolm - Traditional Scottish Folk Music Artist and Songwriter

	"Malcolm has one of those pure, warm folk voices (two parts Archie Fisher,one part Dick Gaughan) that one never tires of listening to."-- Dirty Linen.................... "One of the finest singing voices in Scotland in any style." -- The Living Tradition ................

Sconeward - Lyrics

Scotch Blues (J MalcolmMCPS PRS)

One part of me loves you,
but the rest of me don't
One part of me holds you,
but the rest of me won't
You're a very determined lady,
I'm an easy-going man,
But you're ruining my baby, baby
With your privatisation plan
You've made him so greedy
He doesn't care about the needy
That's your child, backward child
Thatcher's child

Twelve years in the back seat
I watched you driving the nation
Giving to your rich friends
What you stole from my poor relations
You've made them all greedy
Nobody cares about the needy
That's your child, backward child
Thatcher's child

There's a feeling I get when a BBC voice says Brechin
Like a feeling I get when Jim Leighton lets one in
There's a shop in the Kyle of Lochalsh
selling Hong Kong tartan
Scotch blues, it isn't only you
Scotch blues, I'm feeling it too.

There's a feeling I get when Scotland loses an election
Like the feeling I get when they vote Mad Nicky back in
Then they let someone buy a whole
Hebridean island without question
Scotch blues, it isn't only you
Scotch blues, I'm feeling it too.

Neptune (J Malcolm MCPS PRS)

Neptune, I think I'm in love with the sea
How do I woo you and make you love me
I'm drenched by your passion
Enthralled by your anger
Becalmed by your beauty
How do I make you love me?
But when he spoke, it was a plea not a roar
If you want my love, then go and tell them all:

Chorus

Don't oil my beaches, don't slaughter my whales
Don't cross me with diesel, cross me with sail
Give me some time to heal up my wounds
Give me more poison and I will die soon.

Neptune I don't understand what you fear
Here round my island the waters are clear
I live from your riches, your birds and your fishes

I never would choke you, what do you need from me here?
But then he spoke of all the change caused by me
Your damage seems small, but let me recall
That in your grandfather's day there ran salmon
You could walk on their backs
Now what's left of great shoals
Those that slip through the cracks
Now the salmon's in cages, gorged on fishmeal
Sucked from some other sea by cruel profiteers,
So...

Chorus

Don't oil my beaches, don't slaughter my whales
Don't cross me with diesel, cross me with sail
Give me some time to heal up my wounds
Give me more poison and I will die soon.

Losin´ Auld Reekie J Malcolm MCPS PRS

Forty pence in tens, I can't wait to spend
Gets me north across the Forth Road Bridge,
Winding down my window, reaching out to pay the man,
Cruisin', losin' Auld Reekie,

Chorus

Singing though there's no-one there to hear me
A good old tune of which I never weary
No city critics to cramp my style or jeer me,
Cruisin' Losin Auld Reekie

Turn off for Dunfermline, the motorway's gey boring
Going to treat myself the long way home
Motorways are faster, but that's not what I'm after
Cruisin', losin' Auld Reekie.

Trucking on through Dollar
Castle Campbell o'er my shoulder
Glen Devon is the passage that I'm seeking
And my motor's working harder
As it climbs tae Auchterarder
Cruisin', losin' Auld Reekie

Chorus

Fields are full of action
Wi' the farmers in their traction,
Tattie pickers bending over baskets.
Gulls ahint the tractor as it rips the grun' wi clatter
Cruisin', losin' Auld Reekie.

Not that far from Crieff,
Comrie tries to tempt me,
With the finest chip shop in the county
But I've vowed to keep my hunger for a bridie o'er in Forfar,
Cruisin', losin' Auld Reekie
Chorus

Sma Glen, Amulree, Dunkeld, Blairgowrie
Cruisin', losin' Auld Reekie

Skiting into Angus, via Kirrie and Padanarum,
Stopping on the other side of Forfar
Well I could have got there quicker
But I'm fed up cutting corners
Cruisin', losin' Auld Reekie Chorus

Scotlandshire J Malcolm MCPS PRS
Scotlandshire, a name that the cynical use If it's not easy to swallow just follow the news Twelve union yes-men who do just as Westminster says Where do you stand on this? Scotlandshire, think of your Highlander's fate When a home county semi can pay for a Highland estate Properties needed to gi'e folk a place of their own, Sell for holiday homes.	Scotlandshire, don't kid yourself that you've tried, In '79 your chance of home rule was denied. Not by Westminster, where lies the false Stone of Destiny But by our apathy.

Achiltibue J. Malcolm MCPS PRS

When the springtime comes
I get hungry for the north
Like the geese I want to fly
Make an arrow in the sky
I want to travel like a salt sea tinker
Round the Hebridean Isles
Cos I've fallen, hook, line, sinker
For a bonny McKenzie child
And I'll be waiting for you in Achiltibuie.

When the primroses grow by the roads
To the mountains of Skye
I'll be shedding my clothes
Cause if feels like the fourth of July

I want to truck along a hundred B roads
See the Hebrides in style
But I'll be making serious inroads
To my bonnie McKenzie child
And I'll be waiting for you in Achiltibuie.

I want to travel like a salt sea tinker
Round the Hebridean Isles
Cos I've fallen, hook, line, sinker
For a bonny McKenzie child
And I'll be waiting for you in
Achiltibuie.

Lochs of the Tay J. Malcolm MCPS PRS

From Forfar the Dean Water
drains the Vale of Strathmore
Doon the lazy looping Isla,
to the Tay by Meiklour,
Now the Isla's early roaming
Is in Highland no' in Lowland
Where the Ardle and Shee
twine in Ericht's company

Chorus

For the lochs o the Tay
Are the jewels in the crown
Of a Scone coronation
And the streams of the shire
Coarse the county that's
dearest tae me.

Now the Garry disnae tarry
in a melt-swollen spring
With the Bruar, Tilt and Erochty
leaching Atholl's high grun'
From the moors o' lonely Rannoch
Trickles peat frae many dark loch
Through the Tummel's cleft braes
By the northern highways.

Chorus

Doon the Dochart and the Lochy,
spillin doon tae Loch Tay
Killin tae Kenmore tae Aberfeldy,
just a raft race away
Up the pools o high Breadalbane
slip the sleek Lyon salmon
As they funnel their way
Atween Schiehallion and Tay

Chorus

As the Bran pours by Loch Freuchie
doon the braes tae Dunkeld
So the Almond hurries Sconeward,
aye the Tay's eldest child
But the Earn will run her own way,
giving way to Tay only
Ere she flows tae the tide,
wi' the Farg on her side,

Chorus (twice)

The Wisest Fool J. Malcolm MCPS PRS

Murray bowed to Charlie
Yokin Atholl tae the plough
O the settin sons of Stewart kings
and princes since the Bruce,
Rode to Perth to muster
all who hailed the rover king
and wi' weary work and bluster
hewed an army frae his kin

Chorus

If only the wisest fool,
had followed the golden rule
If only the wisest fool,
had followed the golden rule.
Henry's for England, Charles for Spain
Seamus is Alba's name.

Johnny held a tinchel as the
crystal turned to steel
And the heroes o the Heilans

filled the Marrie wi their zeal,
Johnny hummed and hawed and
let the loyal Lowlands spile,
Back to France The Rover
sailed afore the army of Argyll

Chorus

Clavers slipped the council
as they offered Will the crown
Climbed the law to find an army
turned and pulled the Orange down
Though the Heilan' targes
were enough to cow McKay
To the death of Bonnie Dundee
loyal men had no reply

Chorus

Up the Noran Water (ords Helen Cruickshank; music Jim Reid; pub. Springthyme Music)

Up the Noran Water
Roon by Ingle's Maddie,
Annie's got a bairnie
That hasna got a daddie,
Who the bairnie's faither is,
The lassie winna say,
An nobody expected it
Wi Annie's quiet ways.

Up the Noran Water
The bonnie little mannie
Is dandled and cuddled close
By Ingle's Maddie's Annie
Who the bairnie's faither is,

The lassie never says,
But some think it's Tammas's
And ithers think it's Chae's.

Up the Noran Water,
The country folk are kind
And who the bairnie's faither is
They dinna muckle mind
But oh the bairn at Annie's breast,
The love in Annie's e'e
Wid mak me wish
Wi all my micht,
That the lucky lad was me.

Barrenlands (Words J. Malcolm MCPS PRS,based on Barnyards of Delgaty trad)

Coffee table conversation, posing as a caring green
Amazon deforestation, greatest threat the world has seen.
Though they chop and burn the jungle,
making way to grow some food,
Who are we to point the finger, in a land devoid of wood.

Chorus

Linten adie, tourin adie, linten adie too rie ae,
Lilt a lowrin, lowrin, lowrin
Barren lands are Alba's shame.

Once we had a mighty forest
lowland oak and Highland pine
Binding earth and draining water
full of life of every kind

Then demand for fuel and timber
cleared the woods of every tree
Any sappling making show
strippit bare by deer and sheep.

Chorus

Now there is a boom in planting
monoculture evergreen
Dark, depressing, lifeless lumber
nothing else can grow between
Slow return the native timber
so they plant the sitka spruce
Only good to wipe your bottom
so damn good to build a hoose
Chorus (twice)

Grandfathers (J. Malcolm MCPS PRS)

My grandpa taught PT in the army
My other grandpa was a farmer in Glen Artney
Both of them had died before I was born
I feel like I'm still in mourning.

St Valery shell, life over in an instant
Pride of my family lies in a French cemetery,
With kids too young to remember him
And a wife left to fend for them
I feel like I'm still in mourning.

Chorus

Who took these precious men away from me
The man of courage and the man of peace
Left holes and shadows in my family
In 1959 my mother's dad died peacefully
After a life in the hills
Stories of his life are my earliest memory
I feel like I'm still in mourning.

Chorus

The Party (J. Malcolm MCPS PRS)
Well I tanned my father's whisky When he went away on holiday Oatcakes, my mother's sherry She got frae Jean in Broughty Ferry And then I threw a party But you should have seen the carpet Knew my ma would have a hairy fit Time for a sharp exit. I thought I'd join the Foreign Legion, Just to get me oot the region, But I didn't have a passport And my sister wouldn't hold the fort. Why did I throw another party? I was the victim of flattery My mates said my party was the best Could they come back and drink the booze that's left? Word spread around the neighbourhood, Soon every room was full of drunken youths, Along came the local skinheads Docs bouncing up on my ma's Slumberland bed. The gay abandon of the mindless few Put courage in the others too, Soon all the things they wouldn't do at home Surged over like the brimy, brimy foam.	Thank goodness for the boys in blue, My sister phoned them when they smashed the loo, Soon all the underage drinkers, Were diving oot the kitchen windows. And very soon I found I was alone In the middle of a battlezone My sister's picking through the rubble, Calculating my trouble. I filled a trolly full at B&Q But the mess was beyond paint and glue The lovely home that was my mother's pride I had damaged more than I could possibly hide. My sister's sitting in her bedroom Waiting for the folks to come home She wants to see my getting slaughtered She is the goodie goodie daughter. She says I'll have to face the music I wasn't worried about the music I was feart to get a doing My faither's size 10 shoe in. I even phoned up the Samaritans But they just told me: "Tell it as it stands" So now I brace myself for aggro From my suntanned daddio.