MacColl sang this on another record than _Scottish Popular Songs_, viz. _Scots Folk Songs_ (Riverside RLP 12-609), and provided a text there as well, which coincides pretty nearly (except for spelling) with John Ord's version given here by Malcolm Douglas. He also provides a glossary, in which "brosetts" is explained as "soup eaters"! I am grateful to MCP for pointing out the existence of the word "brose".

I have always had trouble making sense of "frae Pitgair" with "Pitgair" a place name. If Charlie is in Pitgair and I am not, how can Charlie hear me? I am to imagine that I am writing him a letter, or perhaps giving him instructions over the telephone %^)? Like Toadfrog, I first heard this song on _Scottish Popular Songs_, and my immediate take on "fippet gair" was that it meant "gare [= keen, eager] as a whippet". (I gather from other songs that wh- sometimes became f- in Scotland.) That seems like the kind of thing one might yell across a barnyard.