A SONG that some claim should be the new national anthem for Scotland has been chosen to be part of a major cultural event.
Matt Seattle’s tune, Theme for the Early Days of a Better Nation, has been given a classical twist for the new Songs For Scotland 2 album which is part of a wider project to put Scottish culture at the heart of a renewed independence campaign.
A crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo is raising money for the project, which will not only fund the album but also go towards creating an Alasdair Gray Scholarship Trust to support young musicians. There are also plans to stage a musical event at Oran Mor beneath Gray’s own ceiling murals.
Project sponsors include The National, Scotland’s only pro-independence daily newspaper, and Gray himself, who has provided both the artwork for the album cover of Native
Musicians: Songs for Scotland 2 and contributed a group of signed, limited edition, silkscreen prints as perks.
Theme for the Early Days of a Better Nation was written by Kent-born Seattle in the run-up to the 2014 independence referendum.
The award-winning piper has lived in the Borders since 1998 and strongly believes that independence is the right of all countries.
Keen to get involved in his local Yes campaign before the 2014 referendum, he went along to a meeting but decided, rather than attempt to become a political campaigner, to do something more suited to his own skills. He composed a tune and asked weel-kent Hawick songwriter Dave Finnie to pen lyrics. The resulting song was very much a team effort.
It was an immediate hit on the campaign trail, with many suggesting it should be a new anthem for Scotland.
Seattle doesn’t agree, saying he prefers to think of it as part of an ongoing story: “It’s been mentioned alongside Hamish Henderson’s Freedom Come All Ye, but that’s not an anthem either, it’s about Scotland ceasing to be colonial power, while Theme for the Early Days is about Scotland ceasing to be a colony,” he pointed out.
“Ours is a song aimed at inspiring people, which I think it does. We know the arguments for independence, but you need something to lift your heart too and imagine the kind of country you want to live in.
“Even more relevant now than in 2014, the first verse sets the scene:
“Skies whaur eagles are at their ease,
“Haud a walcome for wandrin geese;
“Hairts that open an hauns that feed,
“Gie the weary warmth an shelter, gie the hungry broth an breid.”
Featured on the first Songs of Scotland album in 2014, it has been re-recorded for the new album by Selkirk singer Jackie McGuckian accompanied by the eclectic Mr McFall’s Chamber, consisting on this occasion of Rick Standley, Su-a Lee, Brian Schiele, Morag Brown and Robert McFall.
The new recording was inspired by the May 2014 live performance in Stirling under the aegis of the Distil organisation. Recordings of this performance sung by Lori Watson, and of the multi-voice version at Yestival Melrose, are online, a legacy of the heady days of National Collective. The Independence Choir led by Karen Dietz also performed the song widely in 2014, and it has since been recorded by Perthshire group Tarneybackle.
The target of the campaign, which launched last Monday, is £8,500.
For more information, visit the Songs For Scotland 2 website at www.songsforscotland2.eu, or visit their crowdfunding page on Indiegogo: igg.me/at/s4s2
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