AN ambitious project to record with new music every song written or collected by Robert Burns is off to a flying start, with no fewer than seven albums already recorded by singer songwriter Eddie Cairney.
Inspired by his cousin, the actor and writer John Cairney, who is famed for his one-man show on Burns, Cairney has just released album number seven in what will be a long line of albums before the project is completed – Burns either collected or wrote by himself some 900 songs.
Having started the project in 2009, and then taken a break from it, Cairney returned to the job of writing and recording new music for the song lyrics of Burns, explaining “with Covid, I found myself at a loose end, so I decided to make a start on recording the collection.”
He anticipates that at the rate of one album per week, the entire canon of the Bard’s songs will be completed in 2023.
Cairney has had a long career as a musician and songwriter, and National readers may recall his valiant efforts to stage celebratory concerts in connection with last year’s 700th anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath. He explained how the project came about: “My cousin the actor and Burns authority John Cairney had told me many years ago that Burns, although known as a poet, was essentially a song lyricist.
“The sheer size of the catalogue is mind blowing but it is testament to the genius of Robert Burns.”
Cairney added: “It has to be remembered that Burns’s career as a writer, lasted barely 10 years.
“Over the past 225 years, no-one has made any real effort to complete his many songs which have remained tuneless or had to share a tune with several other lyrics.
“Many academics have researched into what tune may have gone with what lyric with lots of speculation and resembling an archaeological dig.
“Robert Burns is as much alive today in the 21st century as he was in the 18th Century.
“His song lyrics can be read as poetry, and very good they are too, but no matter how well they are read, with a few exceptions, they need the dimension of music to bring them to life as they were intended.”
Cairney said that “the philosophy of Burns was that his works were for the enjoyment of everyone” and in that spirit he has made the new songs free via the website www.rbtns.scot
He said: “Robert Burns gave his songs to Scotland and the world for free. He didn’t accept any payment so it’s only fitting that all material on the website should be listened to and downloaded free of charge.”
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