This, From 'Folk Songs of Britain to Davie Stewart's version
Jim Carroll

7. ROTHESAY-O, sung by Davy Stewart, (accompanying himself on the accordion), Dundee, Angus; recorded by Alan Lomax.
The text is a nineteenth century lower-class music-hall creation. The tune, with its ostinato-variative structure and double-stamp endings, is much older, and very characteristic of the kind of melody used by travellers, tramps, itinerant labourers, seamen and other 'up?rooted' men over the past five hundred years. The tune became widely known early in the nineteenth century, when it was applied to a poem by the weaver-poet William Watt (1792-1859), called The Tinklers' Waddin'.

[In June when broom in bloom was seen
And bracken waved fu' fresh and green
And warm the sun wi' silver sheen
The hills and glens did gladden

Ae day upon the Border bent
The tinklers pitch'd their gipsy tent
And auld and young wi' ae consent
Resolved to hauda waddin'-o

CHORUS:
Dirrim-dey doo-a-dey
Dirrim-doo a-da-dee-o
Dirrim-dey doov-day
Hurrah for the tinklers waddin'-o

The fifth verse of this ballad test describes the wild scene, which in turn has much of the character of the later music-hall type words of our ROTHSAY-O:

The drink flew round in wild galore
And soon upraised a hideous roar
Blythe Comus ne'er a queerer core
Saw seated round his table O

They drank, they danced, they swore, they sang,
They quarrelled and ?greed the hale day long,
And the wranglin? that rang among the throng
Wad match the tongues o? Babel O.]

Davy Stewart, a travelling man, has sung his way around Scotland and Ireland, busking at cinema and football queues and public houses. His strident voice and unconventional accordion-playing create an arresting and magical effect.

[Other songs recorded by Davie Stewart
Bogie?s Bonny Belle, (Songs of Courtship ? TC 1142)
The Merchant?s Son (Songs of Seduction ? TC 11430
Dowie Dens of Yarrow (The Child Ballads ? TC 1145)]

Reference:
Seeger/MacColl p.98.



1. Last Hogmanay in Glasgow Fair
Me and mesel' and several mair
All gaed off to hae a wee tear
To spend the nicht in Rothesay-O.

2. We started frae the Broomielaw,
Baith hail and sleet and rain and snow.
Forty minutes after twa,
We went the length of Rothesay-O.

Chorus:
A-durrum-a-doo-a-doo-a-day
A-durrum-a-doo-a-daddy-o,
A-durrum-a-doo-a-doo-a-day,
The nicht we went tae Rothesay-O.

3. There was a lad called Ru(ther) glen Will
Whose regiment's lying at Barron Hill
Gaed off wi' a tanner to get a gill
Before we went to Rothesay-O
Says he: I think I'd like to sing
Says I: Ye'll nae dae sic a thing
I'll clear the room and I'll mak' a ring
And I'll fecht them all in Rothesay-O

5. In search of lodgings we did slide
To get a place where we could bide;
There was eighty-twa of us inside
A single room in Rothesay-O.

Chorus:

6. We all lay down to get our ease.
When somebody happened for to sneeze
And they wakened half a million fleas
In a single room in Rothesay-O.

Chorus:

7. There were several different types of bugs.
Some had feet like dyer's clogs.
An' they sat on the bed an cockit their lugs.
An' cried: "Hurrah for Rothesay-O!"

8. "O noo," says I, "We'll have to slope"
So we went and joined the Band o' Hope,
But the police wouldn't let us stop
Another nicht in Rothesay-O.

Chorus: