Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'

Subject: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: GUEST,Paul Streater
Date: 13 May 21 - 01:22 PM

Hi. Sangschule (community song group in West Lothian) received a request via Facebook for information about a song with this title, which the sender tells us she had heard performed in Linlithgow in 2001. It definitely isn't the group she thought it was (Sangsters). Any ideas out there about whose song it might be, or even better, its lyrics? Thanks in advance.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 14 May 21 - 06:20 AM

This might be what she is looking for.
This seems to be the only song about Edinburgh Waverly that came up in a search.

https://genius.com/Dissenter-edinburgh-waverley-lyrics

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 May 21 - 10:26 AM

https://genius.com/Dissenter-edinburgh-waverley-lyrics

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: GUEST,#
Date: 14 May 21 - 11:06 AM

I was not able to come up with anything about the song. I hope Derrick's find, which Jack was kind enough to clickify, is it. If not, then perhaps the OP could ask for more information or a line from the song. Was it heard in a sing-around, session, main stage, etc. Composition of the group: male, female, mixture, folkish, rockish, etc. I Googled Linlithgow with various phrases, etc., and there are a few things on YouTube, but none I listened to that meet the OP's parameters.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 May 21 - 11:35 AM

I don't think that link can have been it. Not the sort of thing I can imagine anyone at Linlithgow FC singing.

Tattie Bogle has been there a lot - ideas?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 14 May 21 - 12:13 PM

Thanks for clickifying the link Jack it never seems to work for me.
From the clues in the request it sounds like it could be a song written by a local singer which would probably never made it on to the internet, The only likely chance is that someone with a connection to the club might recall it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: GUEST
Date: 14 May 21 - 01:26 PM

Thanks to all for the ideas. I do know the given date was after Linlithgow Folk Club finished up, as the festival was running by that time. It may have been a local singer, and I'll ask around. I know a few locals with an good line in parody songs. Will report back if I find anything!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: GUEST
Date: 14 May 21 - 02:20 PM

More info - I thought I should try a few supplementary questions, and our enquirer has come up with all she can put together of the song.
Verse:
At Dalgetty Bay there isnae a station
But you kin alight at a railway halt.
Then Inverkeithing and thru the tunnel.
You'll smell the Forth and taste the salt
Chorus:
Cheap day return tae Embra Waverley,
Rin noo, the trains near awa.
Off tae the hotbed o vice and white slavery.
Innocent Fifers there vanish like snaw.

This is now more intriguing as I think I have heard that chorus - it's qute memorable!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 May 21 - 03:28 PM

Fifers? Gifford Lind at Dunfermline FC? Christine Kydd from somewhere up there?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 14 May 21 - 09:08 PM

Yes, it rings a very distant bell with me, but I have done various searches of discographies of singers I thought might have done it, but no positives as yet. (Watt Nicoll, Rab Noakes, Peter Nardini, for example). Might be worth exploring any Sangschule archives to see who was tutoring at the time, though I know that sadly some are no longer with us.
Steve Inglis? Scott Davies? George Machray? Andy Shanks? QAnd yes, worth trying Gifford Lind or others in the Makars group.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 21 - 03:21 AM

Doesn't or didn't Ewan McVicar bide in Linlithgow? Maybe he has information...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 May 21 - 04:03 AM

I don't recall Ewan visiting Linlithgow FC. He's in the north-east Highlands now.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 21 - 04:48 AM

Thanks all - I'll do some following up on these suggestions. Definitely not Sangschule-related; we went through and rationalised the extensive song archives early in lockdown!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: GUEST,#
Date: 15 May 21 - 10:06 AM

I have spent about three hours looking for this song and come up empty. That's no guarantee it's not out there somewhere, but if it is I can't locate it. Incidentally, Dalgety has only one t in it (although that makes no difference to searches). FYI.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 21 - 11:47 AM

"Dalgety has only one t in it"
Yes, I did know that, but left spellings, punctuation, etc. as received :)

I have found someone else who has a faint recollection of it, so nice to know I'm not following a false scent!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 May 21 - 12:37 PM

Reads like something John Watt could have done in one of his Kingdom of Fife Nationalist moments.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: GUEST,#
Date: 15 May 21 - 12:39 PM

If you get this one, please make sure it gets to this site. That would be cool :-)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 16 May 21 - 05:40 PM

Jack Campin, Ewan McVicar was an enormous help to us at Linlithgow Folk Festival on many occasions: often did the children’s workshop for us, while he was still living in said town. (That was after the former Linlithgow Folk Club folded.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: Johnny J
Date: 16 May 21 - 06:27 PM

Another possibility for information might be Bruce Davies.
I don't know if he looks in here or not but he sings a very wide range of songs in the "entertaining mould".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: GUEST
Date: 18 May 21 - 06:17 AM

With thanks to Scott Murray and Gifford Lind!

The song appeared on the New Makars Trust’s first album ‘Between the Tay and the Forth’.

Cheap Day Return tae Embra Waverley
(Performed and written by Deryck Foulner)

Chorus
Cheap day return tae Embra Waverley,
Run noo, the train's near awa.
Off tae the hotbed o vice and white slavery.
Innocent Fifers there vanish like snaw.

Trev's oor maister at Aberdour Central
Rising to work half through the night
Short sleeves and bow-tie in snell midwinter,
Amidst the flooers he's quite a sight.

Bay o Dalgety hasnae a station
But you can alight at a railway halt.
Then Inverkeithing and through a tunnel,
You'll smell the Firth and taste the salt.

Iron girders brewed in foundries,
Latticed lights agin the sky,
Linkin lines join two Queensferrys,
Whose highness means we're flying high.

Over the frontier folks look different
You'll need guile tae Market Hay.
Then under the ramparts o the Castle
And journey's end at Waverley.

Last week Sodom, tomorra Gomorra,
Visiting Reekie in between,
Lots o wives to entertain ye,
Show you good times on the scene.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: GUEST
Date: 18 May 21 - 06:44 AM

CORRECTION: V4 Gyle, not guile.


With thanks to Scott Murray and Gifford Lind!

The song appeared on the New Makars Trust’s first album ‘Between the Tay and the Forth’.

Cheap Day Return tae Embra Waverley
(Performed and written by Deryck Foulner)

Chorus
Cheap day return tae Embra Waverley,
Run noo, the train's near awa.
Off tae the hotbed o vice and white slavery.
Innocent Fifers there vanish like snaw.

Trev's oor maister at Aberdour Central
Rising to work half through the night
Short sleeves and bow-tie in snell midwinter,
Amidst the flooers he's quite a sight.

Bay o Dalgety hasnae a station
But you can alight at a railway halt.
Then Inverkeithing and through a tunnel,
You'll smell the Firth and taste the salt.

Iron girders brewed in foundries,
Latticed lights agin the sky,
Linkin lines join two Queensferrys,
Whose highness means we're flying high.

Over the frontier folks look different
You'll need Gyle tae Market Hay.
Then under the ramparts o the Castle
And journey's end at Waverley.

Last week Sodom, tomorra Gomorra,
Visiting Reekie in between,
Lots o wives to entertain ye,
Show you good times on the scene.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 19 May 21 - 05:29 AM

Result! Does anyone have the tune?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 May 21 - 07:03 AM

Aberdour Central? Was there once another station there?

The bit about the flowers is that their platform used to have floral decorations everywhere and won the "best-kept station platform in Britain" league for years.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song 'Day Return tae Embra Waverley'
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 19 May 21 - 06:15 PM

It is a lovely station, Jack, though not very central as the main street goes! A bit of poetic licence, maybe?