Da Slockit Light: A Song History

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"Da Slockit Light," sometimes spelled "Da Slokkit Light," is a slow air by the Shetland fiddler and composer Tom Anderson, who was born on a croft at Eshaness in 1910 and died in 1991.[1] In an account credited to Anderson and dated 1970, he described heading out of Eshaness after eleven one night in late January 1969, glancing back from the hilltop at the edge of the district, and seeing only a handful of lights where he recalled many in his youth; as he looked, they went dark one after another.[2] He tied that sight to the recent loss of his wife and to the old word slockit, used of a light that has gone out, and said he thought this was what gave rise to the tune.[2]

Etching of a moonlit landscape with sheep resting before a hill, a church and tall cypress trees

Samuel Palmer, The Rising Moon, etching; sixth or between sixth and seventh state of nine, ca. 1855. A night landscape shown for its mood; it has no connection to the tune.

Anderson was a central figure in the revival of Shetland fiddling: in 1960 he was one of the chief movers behind a fiddle society that grew into the orchestra nicknamed Da Forty Fiddlers, and from 1970 he pressed for traditional fiddle to be taught in Shetland's schools, becoming the first teacher there when the campaign succeeded.[1] A young Aly Bain was among his earliest pupils.[1] Anderson made a point of giving learners demanding slow airs and strathspeys so that their grounding would be broad.[3] He wrote more than 500 tunes, and the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame counts this one among his slow airs with an international following.[1]

Anderson and Bain recorded it together on The Silver Bow, a Topic Records LP (12TS281) of 1976, made in Edinburgh in October 1975, where it opens a set with "Smith o' Couster" and "Da Grocer."[4] Bing Futch includes it in Mountain Dulcimer In The Band (Book 7), a collection of sixteen flatpicking-friendly tunes for mountain dulcimer that comes with demonstration and backing tracks.[5]

Our book that contains the song "Da Slockit Light"

Sources

  1. Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame (Hands Up for Trad): "Dr Tom Anderson MBE".
  2. Nigel Gatherer: "Da Slockit Light".
  3. Promote Shetland (shetland.org): "Aly Bain at 80: virtuoso, pioneer, ambassador".
  4. Mainly Norfolk: "Tom Anderson, Aly Bain: The Silver Bow".
  5. Bing Futch: "Mountain Dulcimer In The Band (Book 7)".
  6. Image: Samuel Palmer, The Rising Moon, etching; sixth or between sixth and seventh state of nine, ca. 1855. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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