At the time of writing I have still never been sent any tunes calling for a ‘no’ vote in the Scottish Referendum.
One tune I have been sent is from White Heath (who I have featured on the blog many times in the past) and their interpretation of Dougie MacLean’s ‘Caledonia’. You can stream it below:
In their own words ‘We proudly present our version of a modern classic of Scottish song; Caledonia. In response to the Referendum we wanted to add our voices to the outpouring of support for the Yes campaign, not only from artists and musicians, but from the grassroots. Caledonia is a song which captures where we are personally as a group of musicians; it is familiar to us, part of a shared recent history, but it also captures the mood of a people, and the spirit of their convictions. The sentiments and the musical landscape at play are part of the national character. We wanted to shine light on the bent of some of the Dougie MacLean’s gorgeously dark words, often skipped over by the rousing chorus and capture the raw and spontaneous energy that is manifesting itself in Scotland right now as people wake up to the incredible opportunity that lies before them. A people discovering politics again. Four nations and an island separately and together finding voice. A timely and honest self-examination, in which we find our body politic rotting, reminding us of the transience of our limbs, and therefore the importance of the legacy we leave etched before us; the vitality of seizing moments to realise seismic change. Our faults, our strengths, our possibilities. ‘Our multiform’ as Hugh MacDiarmid put it. Caledonia is not Scotland. It is an imagined time, an imagined place. It is a longing and love for someone and something that could be, given time, graft and will.’
