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Twa Recruiting Sergeants

from Over the Main by Dorain

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about

This song mostly likely dates back to the Napoleonic Wars, when the Black Watch would send around recruiting sergeants to compel poor Scottish highlanders to come fight for the British crown overseas. The increasingly desperate and absurd reasoning they employ to convince the farm hand to enlist might ring familiar to anyone who’s been on the receiving end of a recruiting pitch!

lyrics

There was twa recruiting sergeants cam frae the Black Watch
Tae markets and fairs, some recruits for tae catch,
But all that they listed was forty and twa.
Sae list my bonnie laddie and cam awa!

And it’s over the mountain and over the main,
Through Gibraltar to France and Spain.
Pit a feather tae your bonnet and a kilt abeen your knee.
Sae list my bonnie laddie and cam awa wi’ me!

Laddie, ye dunnae ken the danger that you’re in.
If horses were tae fleg and your owsen were tae rin,
That greedy old farmer, he would no pay your fee
Sae list my bonnie laddie and cam awa wi’ me!

And it’s into the barn and out of the byre.
That old farmer things that ye never tire!
It’s a slavin’ job o’ low degree,
Sae list my bonnie laddie and cam awa wi’ me!

Wi’ your tattie pourins and your meal and kale,
Wi’ your soor sowan’ soorins and your ill-brewed ale
Wi’ your buttermilk and whey and your breid fired raw
Sae list my bonnie laddie and cam awa!

Laddie, if you’ve got a sweetheart and a bairn,
You’ll easily get rid of that ill-spun yarn.
Twa rattles o’ the drums, aye, that’ll pay it a’!
Sae list my bonnie laddie and cam awa!

credits

from Over the Main, released January 28, 2017

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Dorain Minneapolis, Minnesota

Dòrain is a folk quartet based in the Twin Cities, playing both Scottish and Irish traditional music. They perform songs in English, Scots, and Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig), frequently incorporating complex vocal harmonies, and mix in a hearty dose of energetic dance tunes. ... more

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