Freedom Come All Ye   
by Hamish Henderson

        
Roch the wind in the clear day’s dawin
Blaws the cloods heelster-gowdie ower the bay
But there’s mair than a roch wind blawin
Ower the great glen o the world the day.
It’s a thocht that wad gar oor rottens
Aa they rogues that ging gallus fresh and gay
Tak the road and seek ither loanins
Fer their ill ploys tae sport an play


Nae mair will the bonnie callants
Mairch tae war when oor braggarts crousely craw
Nor wee weans fae pit-heid an clachan
Mourn the ships sailin doon the Broomielaw
Broken families in lands we’ve herriet
Will curse Scotland the Brave nae mair, nae mair
Black and white yin till ither mairriet
Maks the vile barracks o their maisters bare


So come aa ye at hame wi Freedom
Never heed whit yon hoodie croaks fer doom
In yer hoose aa the bairns o Adam
Will find breid, barley bree an paintet room
When McLean meets wi his freens in Springburn
Aa they roses an geans will turn tae bloom
An a black boy fae oot Nyanga
Dings the fell gallows o the burghers doon

                                ___________________





FREEDOM COME A’ YE                 by         Hamish Henderson

During the early 1960s the Clyde and Dunoon were the scenes of many demonstrations against the arrival of Site 1, the US Navy’s nuclear base on the Holy Loch.

Hamish Henderson wrote what was to become one of his best known and most beautiful songs ‘Freedom Come A’ Ye, dedicating it    ‘for the Glasgow Peace Marchers, May 1960’
it is sung to Hamish’s adaptation of the pipe tune
‘The Bloody Fields of Flanders’. by Dunoon born Pipe Major John (Jock) McLellan DCM
The words are in Scots, yet the meaning is clear to all, and the song endures
now the ‘Roch wind’ is depicted as sweeping away oppression and war over the whole world.