Duncan's Song

Aye, my grannie had that song you were asking about. Don't I remember her singing it at the tattie-lifting? When all the day's work would be done, and we'd be gathered round the fire, I'd say to her, "Sing your song, Grannie." And she'd know which one I meant of all the songs she had, d'ye see – because that was her song, just as its mine now after she gave it to me.
It was her uncle Duncan's song before that, her mother's brother you know, and where he had it from there's no telling because he went to the war in France and he never came home. They say he was a big strong man with a voice that would charm the birds in the trees. He could charm the lassies too – my grannie telled me there was a few sair hearts when the telegram came! But my grannie she was his sweetheart, you see, because she had the gift for singing. So he learned her all his songs before he went away; he knew he wouldn't be coming back - he had the sight d'ye see – and when he was home on leave for the last time he had her sing them all to him until she had them right. But this one song he wouldn't give her; she wisna ready yet, he telled her. She had the song, you know, she had the words and the right way to sing it, but it has to come from the heart and my grannie was only a wee lassie then and what would she know? And Duncan wouldn't give it her, and she couldn't have it until he would give it to her.
People don't understand that now, but that's the way it was, and it was like a rule that you wouldn't sing a song, or tell a story, that belonged to somebody else – not while they were alive. I can tell my daddie's stories now, now that he's gone, God rest him, but while he was living I wouldna…it would have been disrespectful. Sure, there were songs anybody could sing, but there was these songs that were, d'ye see, special – and ye'd know which was which. I mind the time when this famous man, and I'm not going to speak his name, but ye'll know who I mean, and he sang my mother's song – he sang it in front of her, right under her nose. Now he'd no right to do that, and maybe he didn't know that, and maybe he thought she'd be pleased to have him sing it for her, but he shouldn't have done that to her. And for all that he'd put her songs on records and made her famous she'd have nothing to do with him after that. Nothing at all – he'd broken the rule, d'ye see.
But I was telling you about my grannie and Duncan. He wanted her to have that song, but still he couldn't give it to her. And she begged him to let her sing it, and she went with him to the station crying her heart out that he wouldn't let her. She wouldn't let him kiss her when he got on the train, and off he went to France and got killed in the big battle.
My grannie was out in the fields by herself the day they fought that battle and this is what she telled me. 'There was a mist suddenly came down the glen, and the air went cold like ice and all the birds stopped singing. I heard men shouting and guns going off everywhere like it was the end of the world,' she said, 'there was shapes like men running here and there before me. And one of them fell on the ground in front of me and he had no face. He had no face at all. I knew he was looking at me from where his eyes should have been, but I couldn't look back at him. And I sat down in the field and I closed my eyes, but those eyes were still on me, and I could hear his voice calling me to come and kiss him goodbye. And I wouldn't go to him. I just sat there all day in the field until it was dark and the mist was gone and all the noise was gone.'
Grannie knew then that Duncan was dead, and when his mother, that was her own grannie, had the telegram from the War Office a week later my grannie told her what she'd seen in the field that day. His mother hit her in the face for a cruel woman, and showed her the door, but she was afraid of my grannie as well now she'd shown that she too had the second sight. So she was let back in the house but her grannie wouldn't speak to her again. And that was how my grannie had the song you're after. She knew the power that was in it, and the bitterness of it, and when she would sing it it wasn't at all the way Duncan had sung it before. It was the same tune but she put a darkness into it that was never there when he had sung it.
The way I sing it isn't the same way as hers either, and if there's anyone to sing it after me they'll sing it differently too. Only there isn't anybody left to sing it now, not the way it was passed to me. Oh, but I've heard people sing it,ye know; there's one young lass who does it beautifully, and I asked her who she had it from, and she says it was in a book. A book! I never had any of my songs out of any book. My grannie and my mam learned me all my songs, and that was the same way they got their songs.
Did you know that my mam and me fell out over this song? Mam wanted it, but Grannie wouldn't let her have it. Mam had the heart for it all right, and she did sing it once for an American who got it on tape and put it on a record where he said it was her song. Grannie made her pay for that! Any time that she sang the song herself she'd begin by saying 'This is a song my daughter stole from me, but I've got it back now.' And she'd give Mam a long, hard glare. Mam's voice wasn't right for the song at all, d'ye see? She had the best voice out of all of us, and that's the truth, but she'd put so many notes into her singing that sometimes you wouldn't hear the song at all.
It was after wee Donald died that Grannie gave the song to me. He was only four years old, and he was a lovely bairn. He swallowed a penny, one of the old big pennies that you had then, and he was choking on it and I shook him and shook him and ran with him in my arms to the doctor's house and banged on the door. The doctor's wife came down and she looks at me and says, 'My husband is busy now, you'll have to wait.' The bairn's turning blue in my arms, and she tells me to wait! So the doctor comes and he looks at Donald and he says to me, 'This child is dead. There's nothing I can do for him.' He was the bonniest lad, and he was dead in my arms.
I wanted to sing over him, but I had no words – none, no words at all. Grannie said to me, 'Sing Duncan's song.' And I sang that song for him then, and every time I sing it now I'm singing it for wee Donald.
Mam was still jealous that Grannie had given the song to me, and not to her. If we were singing together she wouldn't let me sing it, but she knew better than to sing it herself even after Grannie died. And if I couldn't sing my song with her then after a while I wouldn't sing it at all. I'd to bide my time, d'ye see?
I'm the last one to sing it the old way now, the way I had it from my grannie, and how she had it from Duncan. There's nobody left to give it to that's able to feel the power that's in it. It comes from the heart, not the voice, d'ye see? I'll sing it for you now....