Loch Lomond -- Lady John Scott

Chiming in...

(Poem #719) 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. -- Lady John Scott

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:
[broken link] 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, [broken link] 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:
[broken 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'.