To the Immortal Memory of Robert Burns
delivered at the Burns' Supper of the St. Andrews Society of Rhode Island
at Rhodes-on-the Pawtucket, February 5, 2000
by Bruce Hedman
When Sandy and I were living in Edinburgh during fall term last year, we were told to stay away from the rough neighborhood
around Edinburgh's council housing. We were told the story that one night a man was driving alone through this council housing.
He heard a terrible knocking from his engine, and pulled over to open the hood, I mean the bonnet. While he was peering at the
engine, another driver pulled over, and asked, "While you're pinching the battery, mind if I nick the tires?"
I tell this story,
because tonight I feel as though I am nicking material from John MacLean. When John asked me to speak about Robert Burns
at this 37th Burns Supper in Rhode Island, I wondered what more I could say than what he had already said in years past. But I
shall steal shamelessly, because Robert Burns' achievement was so staggering that it bears repeating again and again.
For a
moment this evening I want us to reflect on just one aspect of Burns' colossal contribution to Scottish culture, his songwriting.
His creative output during the last ten years of his life focused on an edition of Scottish songs entitled "A Scots Musical
Museum," published in Edinburgh by James Johnson. Through this work Burns'poetic genius forever shaped how Scotland
sings. The "Musical Museum" eventually stretched to six volumes and included 600 hundred songs, 200 of which Burns himself
either wrote or edited.
Burns' motive was patriotic. He wrote at a time when Scotland was struggling to preserve her national
identity, after having lost her political identity with the unpopular Union of the Parliments in 1707. His song "Such a parcel of
rogues in the nation" laments that "We are bought and sold for English gold."
Burns sought to preserve Scottish language and
music from being swallowed up in English culture. Burns knew that a musical tune will be more easily remembered if it has
catchy lyrics. So to many old Scots tunes he wrote inspiring lyrics in the Lowland Scots tongue. Lest the tune "Hey Tutti Tatti"
be forgotten, Burns wrote the memorable words "Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled, Scots wham Bruce has often led, welcome
tae your gory bed, or to victory."
Some traditional songs Burns preserved for future generations by being the first to write them
down. In a letter to George Thomson Burns admits that he did not compose the song "Auld Lang Syne," but wrote "I took it
down from an old man's singing." Yet, his genius is stamped on a staggling list of songs entirely his own. His first song to be
published with a musical score was "Green Grown the Rashes, O." And who among cannot hum a few bars of "Flow Gently
Sweet Afton," "Ye Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon," "Ae Fond Kiss," "Comin' Thro the Rye," "John Anderson, My Jo," or
"My Luv is like a Red, Red Rose."
Last year when Sandy and I visited the Burns House in Dumfries, the curator told us a story
about his grandfather, who was a blind fiddler there in Dumfries. In those days the Burns House was not a museum nor a tourist
attraction but an ordinary home. Yet, the grandfather would sit on the curb there outside the Burns House, and play Burns tunes
on his fiddle for the passersby. They in turn would reward his busking with a few coins in his hat. Thus, has each generation of
Scots paid its respects in its own way to the genius of Robert Burns. And so I now ask us in our own way to charge our glasses
and be upstanding for the toast to the immortal memory of Robert Burns.
Back to Tara's Thistle Home page
The Robert Burns Memorial - Alloway, Ayrshire
Here Bruce Pipes in the Haggis at a Burns Supper
