Scotland The Brave: A Song History
"Scotland the Brave" is a Scottish march in 2/4 time, and the sources consulted name no composer for it. When it first appeared is debated. Jack Campin, cited in the Traditional Tune Archive, dates its emergence to roughly 1900, and the archive also points to a Boys' Brigade book of pipe tunes from about 1911 that prints it as "Scotland, the Brave!!!" Charles Gore, however, placed the melody somewhat earlier, between about 1891 and 1895, when it was printed in Keith Norman Macdonald's Gesto Collection of Highland Music as a trumpet march under the name "Brave Scotland" or "Scotland for Ever."[1] The archive adds that the tune has also served for a polka step in the Morris dancing of North West England.[1]
Pipers, Cameron Highlanders, postcard, between 1900 and 1930. Library of Congress. No known restrictions on publication. Highland pipers of the era; the postcard is not connected to the tune’s history.
The words most people sing today date from 1950, when the writer and broadcaster Cliff Hanley supplied them for the performer Robert Wilson, who wanted a closing number for a Scottish Christmas revue at the Glasgow Empire Theatre. Hanley, well known as a humorist, is said to have filled the verses with as many stock images of Scotland as he could manage.[1]
The tune also has an official military role. The Royal Regiment of Scotland was created in 2006 by merging Scotland's historic infantry regiments,[2] and "Scotland the Brave" has been its regimental march since that year.[1] Among mountain dulcimer players, it appears in Stephen Seifert's Join the Jam, a collection of popular tunes from the dulcimer jam tradition.[3]
Find books with Scotland The Brave for sale →