I was lucky enough to be part of a grand concert at this year's Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow -- "The Wee Red Book" event to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Traditional Music and Song Association of Scotland (TMSA) and the reprint of Norman Buchan's "101 Scottish Songs", first published in 1962.

The book contained dozens and dozens of the songs that we had hoovered up during our time in Norman's Ballads Club at Rutherglen Academy and the concert consisted of unaccompanied singing from twenty two singers ranging in age from 7 to 70+. There were ballads, music hall songs, bothy ballads, some Burns' songs and parlour songs and -- of course, love songs. And, very fittingly, Alison McMorland sang 'Skippin Barfit Thro' the Heather' which Norman had first heard at the People's Festival Ceilidh in 1951, sung by Jessie Murray, a Buckie fishwife : he would later always describe this as his "road to Damascus" moment.

The whole cast was onstage throughout and the venue was packed with an audience who knew the book and cherished the songs -- so the chorus singing was immense and always appropriate (a wee whisper for the Bressay Lullaby, sturdy for The Wark o the Weavers, melodic for Will Ye Gang, Love? and beyond stirring for the encore The Freedom Come-All-Ye which was the only song not from the book).

The cast were very aware from the faces of the audience that this really was a shared experience (and the video which was made of the concert shows the delight of sharing from both sides).

I've seldom if ever found better evidence that -- to quote the original poster -- "The Song is the Important Thing"!

(And the video is available to buy from TMSA, should anyone want to share a lovely event.)