Yes I will post the other song soon, probably tomorrow.

I would like it if Aodh can tell us more about the place of song and music in the community he grew up in. I'd be interested in any observation, for instance. of how people learn and pass on songs.

When I wrote that I was glad to see Sc. Gaelic songs being posted, I was thinking about how the Irish language songs now have a fairly high international and commercial profile. The Irish songs are better known abroad than the Gaelic songs from Scotland, and yet there is a very strong Gaelic song tradition in Scotland. Among the non-Gaelic speakers, the songs are mostly known through Gaelic choirs and the mod, and also popular groups such as Capercaillie and Runrig. In the Gaelic-speaking areas singing has a strong place in the social life.

I visited the western isles many times in the 1990s. I went to a lot of ceilidh dances in Berneray (Bearnaraidh Uidhist/na Hearadh) and in Stornaway. At a dance in Ireland, we mostly dance, but in the Western Isles they always called up lots of singers from the floor. Sometimes they sang the more well-known songs which I imagine they'd learned in school. Sometimes they sung songs by local people; they knew these people and/or their descendents. It was rare at dances in Berneray community centre to hear anybody under 50 sing a song in Gaelic, however, and many of the singers were over 70. There would be plenty of children and teenagers dancing, but they weren't called to sing, and there were a couple of younger adults who sang English-language songs. In Berneray people also sing and tell jokes and stories when they party in their houses.
I spoke with women who had waulked tweed when they were younger; there is no longer any tweed industry at all in Berneray. They sang while they worked. But people have not kept these songs as mere entertainment. I didn't hear waulking songs at ceilidhean, nor much puirt a' beul for that matter.
As for Stornaway, it is hardly a bastion of Gaelic, but there are lots of Gaelic speakers from elsewhere in Lewis and Harris who live or work in the town. One ceilidh I went to was almost entirely made up of people from Point. These ceilidhean at the boat club and the British Legion didn't have children in attendance; there were some younger adults singing as well as the older people.
But I think what impressed me most was when a party of councillors from Comhairle nan Eilean came to Derry, N Ireland on an exchange trip, along with a group of musicians and Highland dancers. Relaxing in a pub after a concert by the musical contingent, some of the visiting councillors were singing songs to each other and discussing the songs' authors and backgrounds. (Sorry Aodh, I think these singers were from Lewis not from Uist!)

Aodh, you wrote somewhere on Mudcat about 'step dancing' in Uist? As far as I am aware step dancing is a revival of dance styles "brought back" from Nova Scotia. There are a few dancers living in Skye who teach weekly classes in Skye and Lochalsh for children and adults, but I personally only came across step dancing in the Western Isles when festivals and workshops were taking place. I went to the first "Ceolas" summer school in S Uist 5 or 6 years ago. Cape Breton musicians and dancers play a big role in that school. I wonder have the steps taken off since then, in the way they are growing in popularity in Skye? Or do you remember people step dancing when you were growing up?
I'm interested in the quadrilles because I really enjoy céili and set dancing in Ireland. I enjoyed dancing in Scotland to, but someimes I longed for a dance with more complex patterns than the two hand dances (Canadian Barn Dance, St Bernard Waltz, etc) and Strip the Willow. I was talking to a 70+ year old woman in Berneray about this, how I missed the dancing I do in Ireland. I was describing set dancing to her, and she knew what I was talking about even though I had not used the terms that she did when she said "We used to do quadrilles, we did Lancers when I was young." Despite the substantial 'Bringing it all back home' revival of Cape Breton Step Dancing, which several people teach in Scotland; the only person I know of teaching the group dances such as quadrilles is Scandinavian Mat Mellins who mostly works in Lewis and Sutherland. I wonder if Aodh meant these sort of dances? The Ceolas group attended/performed at a ceilidh in Eriskay. We'd heard that a local quadrille was still danced there, but the people who were asked to show it to us were too shy to put on a performance, and we hadn't much time to warm them round to the idea before we had to get our special late ferry back to South Uist. ...I remain interested in hearing anything about the survival and revival of quadrille -type dances in Scotland.