Loch Lomond
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 be,
On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.
Oh, you'll take the high road, and I'll take 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 of Loch Lomond.
I mind where we parted in yon shady glen,
On the steep, steep side of Ben Lomond,
Where in deep purple hue the Highland hills we view,
And the moon coming out in the gloaming.
Oh, you'll take the high road... etc.
The wee birdies sing and the wild flowers spring,
And in sunshine the waters are sleeping,
But the broken heart will ken no second spring again,
And the world does not know how we are greeting.
Oh, you'll take the high road... etc.
Commentary
Chiming in…
Mistakenly attributed by Lord Ickenham to the poet Burns.
Referred to in ‘Uncle Fred In The Springtime’ (1940):
From some spot hidden from them by thick shrubberies there came the sound
of a pleasant tenor voice. It was rendering “Bonny, Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond”, and putting a good deal of feeling into it.
"Gah! that whistling feller again!"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Chap who comes whistling and singing outside my window," said the Duke,
like the heroine of an old-fashioned novelette speaking of her lover.
– P. G. Wodehouse, ‘Uncle Fred In the Springtime”
The Duke (Alaric, of Dunstable) dislikes the song with an especially virulent dislike because, well, it doesn’t rhyme. Oh well. One can’t have everything <grin>.
— Thomas
Moreover
Leslie Nelson’s Contemplator folk website has a MIDI file of this song: http://www.contemplator.com/folk/lomond.mid recorded by Barry Taylor.
Nelson goes on to say:
“Loch Lomond is an old Jacobite Air. It is based on an older folk tune ‘Robin Cushie (Kind Robin Loves Me)’, in McGibbons’ Scots Tunes Book I, dated 1742. The words are attributed to Lady John Scott (1810-1900) who adapted a broadside by Sanderson of Edinburgh (1838). The version we are familiar with today is said to have first appreared in print in Poets and Poetry of Scotland (1876).
Folklore has it that the words were written by a captured Jacobite solider in Carlisle Castle in 1745. Two soldiers were captured and one lived (took the high road) and the other was executed. This is a nice addition to Jacobite folklore, but otherwise is not true.”
– Leslie Nelson, http://www.contemplator.com/folk/lomond.html
(The above link has more on Loch Lomond, the Jacobite uprising, and Scottish folk music - it’s worth a visit).
Credits
Thanks to V. Ganesh, for sending in this link: http://people.netscape.com/thaths/wodehouse/ which is ‘an attempt by the good folks at alt.fan.wodehouse to collect the text of all the songs that P.G.,Wodehouse makes cursory references to in his books’.
Show 6 commentsHide comments
From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Ira Cooper · 8 March 2001
I remember learning this song, early in elementary school. I will never forget that one female classmate, by the name of Bonnie, was so taken by the words of the song that she inscribed her last name into our music book, right after one of the “Bonnies.” I also remember the fit thrown by the teacher, upon discovery of the editing!
John McManamon · 4 June 2002
One of the most beautiful recordings of this song is done by Chanticleer on their album “Wondrous Love” which is a collection of folk songs from around the world. It’s guaranteed to stir the Celtic soul!
- John McManamon
GrainneInGlasgow · 4 January 2003
Each year whilst we camped in Argyll, Scotland, with our grandfather, my brothers and I sang this poem. We had to pass Lochs Lomond and Restal and various others en-route to our site. We always assumed the “high road” meant the new road (over the Rest and Be Thankful), whilst the “low road” meant the old track deep in the glen …. obviously wrong but it made sense to us as children :-)
Just seeing this poem again has brought back so many pleasant memories …
Gráinne
Ian Baillieu · 28 October 2003
As regards the folklore about the lyrics referring to two captured Jacobite soldiers, one of whom was to be hanged, and the other freed to walk back to the Scottish highlands, someone once told me many years ago that the ‘high road’ in this song meant swinging high on the gallows, while the ‘low road’ was the survivor’s road at ground level. This is the opposite of the interpretation usually given, that the ‘low road’ means death. The ‘usual’ interpretation may seem easier to reconcile with Lady Scott’s lyrics, but there other versions of this song earlier than hers. Some of the original sense of the song may have been confused by changes introduced from one version to the next.
Robert Benjamin Johnston · 2 September 2006
For those you inclined to a raucous version, I would heartily suggest the Real McKenzies…You got to like a bunch of Canadians of Scottish descent from Vancouver that play Punk, but manage to have an actual piper in their band…Of course some may consider it sacrilege…But hey, they also have a version of Scotts Wa¹ Hae¹ that actually has some anger and energy about it…
Candace McCoy · 28 March 2008
hi – The song is played sometimes at funerals…particularly impressive when played on bagpipes. Perhaps the story of the two Jacobite soldiers, one of whom lived and the other who died, makes it particularly appropriate. When I first heard it, I was told that it was a lament for the dead Bonnie Prince Charlie, though it seems everything in Scottish folksongs gets attributed to Jacobites and Bonnie Princeton Charlie! In any event, the lyrics perfectly fit the idea of mourning. In saying “you take the high road and I’ll take the low road,” the mourner addresses a person who has gone “above” and left the mourner bereft here on earth below. The true lovers will never meet again, but one will return to Scotland “before ye.” (That would be the one who lives…perhaps on a pilgrimage back to Scotland to the place where the true lovers were “wont to go.”) Of course, there is a more mundane explanation. In Scottish Highland towns, the High Road is the road that goes through the center of town. The low road is further down the hill at the edge of town. There is no doubt that the song is a mournful lament for a dead love and the mourner expects never to have love again. “The broken heart will ken no second spring again.” I have no idea what the line “and the world can not know what we’re greeting” means.
Candace McCoy
Professor
City University of New York
The Graduate Center
John Jay College Doctoral Program
899 Tenth Avenue, Suite 636T
New York