Song & Music

Robert Burns is one of the most prolific songwriters and song collectors of all time. The second (Scots Musical Museum) and third (Songs for George Thomson) set of volumes in the new OUP edition of the works of Robert Burns will pay tribute to this by providing a definitive scholarly treatment of Burns’s song for the 21st century.

As part of the ‘Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century’ project, we will commission a number of new recordings of Burns’s songs to support the OUP edition, and they will be made freely available for download on this page.

A Collection of six songs performed by Bill Adair was released in celebration of Burns Night 2013. These include the internationally famous ‘My Luve’s like a Red, Red Rose’ (preceded by an instrumental), both old and new settings of the song ‘John Barleycorn’, and several other songs that were included by Burns in his prose writings. Indeed, this was the first set of songs to be linked directly to a volume of the new Oxford University Press edition of The Works of Robert Burns. The first volume of the edition, Robert Burns: Commonplace Books, Tour Journals and Miscellaneous Prose (Ed. Nigel Leask), was published on the 31st July 2014.

 

To mark the Kilmarnock Symposium hosted by the Centre for Robert Burns Studies on the 19th October 2012, we made available a further four songs recorded by new Scottish talent Davidona Pittock. The ‘Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century’ project hopes to showcase a variety of up-and-coming young artists as the recording programme continues in the coming months and years.

 

A collection of five songs, performed by popular Scottish folk artists Kirsten Easdale and Gregor Lowry at the 2012 Burns conference, were made available on the 25th of July of 2012 to mark the launch of the new ‘Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century’ website.

We hope that you will download and enjoy these recordings! Let us know what you think by commenting on our individual song pages.

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All Songs

• A Red, Red Rose (Bill Adair)
• A Red, Red Rose (Major Graham’s Strathspey)
• A Red, Red Rose (Old Set)
• A Red, Red Rose (Wishaw’s favourite)
• A Red, Red Rose (Low down in the Broom)
• A Red, Red Rose (Burns and the fiddle project)
• Afton Water (Davidona Pittock)
• Afton Water (Period performance project)
• As I Cam O’er the Cairney Mount (Kirsten Easdale & Gregor Lowry)
• Auld Lang Syne (Scots Musical Museum)
• Auld Lang Syne (Thomson)
• Auld Lang Syne (Period performance project)
• Braw Lads on Yarrow Braes (Davidona Pittock)
• Ca’ the Ewes to the Knowes (Kirsteen McCue)
• Clarinda (Period performance project)
• Comin Thro’ the Rye, 1st sett (Period performance project)
• Comin Thro’ the Rye, 2nd sett (Period performance project)
• Contented wi’ Little, &c (Kirsteen McCue)
• Duncan Davison (‘There was a lass, they ca’d her Meg’) (Burns and the fiddle project)
• Farewell, Dear Mistress of My Soul (Clarinda, Mistress of My Soul) (Period performance project)
• For A’ That and A’ That (Period performance project)
• For A’ That and A’ That (Burns and the fiddle project)
• For the Sake of Somebody (Period performance project)
• Green Grow the Rashes, O (Bill Adair)
• Green Grows the Rashes (Period performance project)
• Gloomy December (Kirsten Easdale & Gregor Lowry)
• Handsome Nell (Kath Campbell)
• Hey Tutti Taiti (Period performance project)
• I Love my Jean (Paul McKenna)
• I love my Jean (‘Of a’ the airts’) (Burns and the fiddle project)
• Jamie Come Try Me (Period performance project)
• John Anderson, My Jo (Period performance project)
• John Barleycorn – New Arrangement (Bill Adair)
• John Barleycorn – Original Arrangement (Bill Adair)
• Johnie Cope (Paul McKenna)
• Lassie wi’ the Lintwhite Locks (Paul McKenna)
• McPherson’s Farewell (Sheena Wellington)
• McPherson’s Farewell (Kath Campbell)
• My Girl She’s Airy (Bill Adair)
• My Girl She’s Airy (Sheena Wellington)
• My Wife’s a Wanton, Wee Thing (Davidona Pittock)
• O Lassie, art thou Sleeping Yet (Alison McNeill)
• O Lay thy Loof in Mine Lass (Davidona Pittock)
• O Logan, Sweetly Didst thou Glide (Davidona Pittock)
• O Poortith Cauld (Period performance project)
• Robert Bruce’s Address to his Army at Bannockburn (Alison McNeill)
• Scots Wha Hae Wi’ Wallace Bled (Period performance project)
• Scroggam (Period performance project)
• Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot (Period performance project)
• Sic a Wife as Willie Had (Period performance project)
• Sic a Wife as Willie Had (Burns and the fiddle project)
• Song, composed in August (Kirsten Easdale & Gregor Lowry)
• Stay, My Charmer, Can You Leave Me? (Period performance project)
• Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation (Kirsten Easdale & Gregor Lowry)
• The Banks o’ Doon (Davidona Pittock)
• The Banks o’ Doon (Period performance project)
• The Banks of Nith (Burns and the fiddle project)
• The Birks of Aberfeldy (Davidona Pittock)
• The Bonny Wee Thing (Alison McNeill)
• The Deil’s Awa Wi’ Th’Exciseman (Period performance project)
• The Dumfries Volunteers (Period performance project)
• The Gardener Wi’ His Paidle (Period performance project)
• The Lovely Lass of Inverness (Period performance project)
• The Slave’s Lament (Davidona Pittock)
• There’s Auld Rob Morris (Period performance project)
• Tibbie, I hae seen the day (Sheena Wellington)
• Tibbie, I hae seen the day (Kath Campbell)
• Tibbie, I hae seen the day (Burns and the fiddle project)
• When O’er the Hill the Eastern Star (Kirsteen McCue)
• Where braving angry Winter’s storms (Kirsten Easdale & Gregor Lowry)
• Where braving angry Winter’s storms (Burns and the fiddle project)
• Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary (Sheena Wellington)
• Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary (Period performance project)
• Willie Brew’d a Peck o’ Maut (Kirsten Easdale & Gregor Lowry)
• Ye Jacobites by Name (Kirsteen McCue)
• Yestreen I had a pint o’ wine (Sheena Wellington)