Ye Jacobites by Name

So you don't get lost, here are the lyrics to the particular tune I'm talking about: Ye Jacobites by Name.

Now, most of the penned down stuff and folk music you get in connection with the Jacobites is all pro-Jacobite and stuff like that. Now, here's a different twist on it. As the site clearly states and shows, the original words were a scathing, specific lashing of the whole Jacobite cause. Any more and your ears would bleed. Now, along comes Robert Burns with his Jacobite sympathies (and, luckily for him, he was also not in the actual time of the Jacobites or else...) and he toned down the lyrics. Now, when sung right, it's a great song full of fire, though a bit too specific for my tastes...I like songs about fictional characters who are metaphors for everyday life--or even real characters who are metaphors, like in "There Were Roses". But this song fascinates me.

Another Jacobite song I just discovered today and am wearing out my computer playing a MIDI file of it, is "Johnnie Cope". The lyrics are in broad Scots dialect (or whatever you call it) and the story is...well...let's just say I like Jacobite songs for their tunes (and, occasionally, sentiments), but I don't really enjoy the whole history or story behind the thing. However, as no one seems to have written new words for it, I'm coming up with my own personal ones. If they're good, you can read them here. The problem? Well, the chorus begins "Hey, Johnnie Cope" and I can't discard that. Seriously, I've tried. So now I have to find a name with two syllables and then one. The closest I've come to is "Mr. Brown" for the goat that gets into the...well, we won't go there; or "Willie Lew" (short for Willie Lewis, Lewis being the last name) for the...well, it's supposed to be funny, but I can't get any farther than "He's gonna loose and it's not his fault", but who would be saying that and why? Hmmm, somehow I think starting at the beginning would be easier...

Willie Lewis is another topic entirely. No, he's not my boyfriend. It's just how I came up with him and why that you will find interesting if you find anything about this blog interesting. Except, you probably won't. In the words of John Lennon: "I'm so bored/I buried Paul."