0:00:03 > 0:00:04I'm Kirsteen McCue.
0:00:04 > 0:00:06There are two people who have shaped my life -
0:00:06 > 0:00:10Robert Burns, who I have spent my career writing about,
0:00:10 > 0:00:13and my dad, Bill McCue, the great Scottish singer and entertainer.
0:00:13 > 0:00:16# But just a drappie in our ee
0:00:16 > 0:00:19# The cock may craw, the day may daw
0:00:19 > 0:00:24# But aye we'll taste the barley bree. #
0:00:24 > 0:00:27As a child, Burns was on such a pedestal in our house
0:00:27 > 0:00:28it almost put me off.
0:00:30 > 0:00:32It's 16 years since my dad died
0:00:32 > 0:00:35and I'm collaborating on a new edition of Burns's songs.
0:00:35 > 0:00:39# Sic a wife as Willie had
0:00:39 > 0:00:43# I wadna gie a button for her! #
0:00:43 > 0:00:45At this point in my life,
0:00:45 > 0:00:50I want to find out more about what connects Burns, my dad and me.
0:00:50 > 0:00:56# My love is like a red, red rose
0:00:56 > 0:01:02# That's newly sprung in June. #
0:01:02 > 0:01:06# But then one day I saw a maid. #
0:01:06 > 0:01:08# Land of my high endeavour
0:01:08 > 0:01:10# Land of the shining river. #
0:01:10 > 0:01:14If you watched any TV in Scotland in the '70s and '80s,
0:01:14 > 0:01:17you'll definitely have seen my dad in a kilt.
0:01:17 > 0:01:20He could turn that amazing voice to almost anything.
0:01:24 > 0:01:26From serious opera...
0:01:26 > 0:01:31# Is the head that wears the crown. #
0:01:31 > 0:01:33..to real crowd-pleasers.
0:01:33 > 0:01:35# Come along, come along
0:01:35 > 0:01:37# Be it fair or stormy weather
0:01:37 > 0:01:39# With the hills of home before us
0:01:39 > 0:01:43# And the purple o' the heather
0:01:43 > 0:01:46# We'll sing a happy chorus
0:01:46 > 0:01:47# Come along, come along. #
0:01:47 > 0:01:53But it was Burns who turned him into a singer
0:01:53 > 0:02:09# Flow gently, sweet Afton... #
0:02:09 > 0:02:14and I do wish now that I could ask him lots of questions,
0:02:14 > 0:02:18which I wasn't able to ask him when he was alive.
0:02:18 > 0:02:23# My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream... #
0:02:25 > 0:02:29Mum was a very fine musician who took a step back from her own career
0:02:29 > 0:02:31really because my dad's took off.
0:02:31 > 0:02:33She often accompanied Dad at the piano,
0:02:33 > 0:04:32though some of the early recordings are a wee bit of a mystery.
0:04:32 > 0:04:36It just... It looked so glamorous -
0:04:36 > 0:04:39this sort of rags-to-riches film.
0:04:41 > 0:04:45I once got off the bus at Allanton and he had parted his hair
0:04:45 > 0:04:49like Mario Lanza!
0:04:49 > 0:04:55One of the really big influences on Dad was Paul Robeson.
0:04:55 > 0:04:58Yes. So Dad went to this concert and you went with him, didn't you?
0:04:58 > 0:05:02Yes, he must've found out that they would be having a rehearsal,
0:05:02 > 0:05:07so he went to the back door and asked to see Paul Robeson,
0:05:07 > 0:05:10and went in and sang for him.
0:05:10 > 0:05:13And got some good advice.
0:05:13 > 0:05:16I think he must have sung a Negro spiritual to him,
0:05:16 > 0:05:19or a spiritual as we say nowadays,
0:05:19 > 0:05:23and he probably sang it in the same style as Robeson
0:05:23 > 0:05:26and Robeson said, "No, if you're doing this,
0:05:26 > 0:05:29"you do it in your own language, your own vernacular.
0:05:29 > 0:05:32"Don't mimic."
0:05:32 > 0:05:35What do you think it was that made the connection for Dad with Burns?
0:05:35 > 0:05:37When he was a boy,
0:05:37 > 0:05:43he had won the regional Burns competition in Motherwell.
0:05:43 > 0:05:48The judge at that particular contest was another famous Scottish singer
0:05:48 > 0:05:50called Robert Wilson.
0:05:50 > 0:05:55That's the book he got, wasn't it? And that's the first prize.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59"Presented to William McCue by the Burns Federation, first prize.
0:05:59 > 0:06:04"November 1948," when he would have been 14. Yeah.
0:06:04 > 0:06:09Dad's love of Burns was forged at that competition, and both Burns
0:06:09 > 0:06:12and that very book became his lifelong companions.
0:06:13 > 0:06:16I sang...I think it was The Bonnie Lass O' Ballochmyle
0:06:16 > 0:06:19and I was in the middle of the second verse when I thought
0:06:19 > 0:06:22I was getting a frog or phlegm or something and I coughed to clear it,
0:06:22 > 0:06:24and when I went to come in with the next phrase
0:06:24 > 0:06:25there was nae voice there, you see,
0:06:25 > 0:06:28and Robert immediately got up and said, "Ladies and gentlemen,
0:06:28 > 0:06:34"I think we've heard the final notes of what was a boy soprano voice."
0:06:34 > 0:06:40# Even there her other works are foiled
0:06:40 > 0:06:47# By the bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle
0:06:47 > 0:06:53# The bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle. #
0:06:56 > 0:06:58Hello, Uncle Denny. Hello, Kirsteen.
0:06:58 > 0:07:03How are you? You look a million. Oh, you're lovely, hen.
0:07:03 > 0:07:05So are you. Oh, deary, dear.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10Uncle Denny is my dad's big brother
0:07:10 > 0:07:12but I haven't seen him for some time.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16It's a nice photo, that, of him. Yeah.
0:07:16 > 0:07:21The girls were all after him, you know. They liked Big Wullie.
0:07:21 > 0:07:24We never called him Bill, you know. I know.
0:07:24 > 0:07:28His pals christened him Bill.
0:07:28 > 0:07:30They christened him Bill.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33But he was always Wullie, was he?
0:07:33 > 0:07:34Aye. Oor Wullie.
0:07:34 > 0:07:37What was music at home like then?
0:07:37 > 0:07:38Everybody's pals used to come up,
0:07:38 > 0:07:43"Come up to McCue's and we'll get a wee sing-along on a Sunday afternoon."
0:07:43 > 0:07:45If the weather was good, my faither would say, "Open the windaes,
0:07:45 > 0:07:47"let the neighbours hear us!"
0:07:49 > 0:07:54And did you and Dad sing, because you sang as well, did you not? Oh, aye.
0:07:54 > 0:07:56Aye.
0:07:56 > 0:07:59They always say, "Oh, Denny, Denny's a better singer than Bill."
0:07:59 > 0:08:02Denny could never lace Bill's shoes.
0:08:02 > 0:08:05Oor Bill was class.
0:08:05 > 0:08:08I was a pub singer, as they say.
0:08:08 > 0:08:11Tell me, Uncle Denny, about Granny.
0:08:11 > 0:08:14She could debate. She was a great reader. Right.
0:08:14 > 0:08:16She was a great woman.
0:08:16 > 0:08:19My mother was a Communist, you know. Right.
0:08:19 > 0:08:25Oh, aye. She just thought there was nothing like the Communist Party.
0:08:25 > 0:08:29Did she read literature? Did she read Burns? Did she read poetry?
0:08:29 > 0:08:30Oh, she read Burns. She used to say,
0:08:30 > 0:08:34"If ever I was asked who was the greatest man Scotland produced,"
0:08:34 > 0:08:36she would say, "Robert Burns."
0:08:36 > 0:08:39My mother was the first lady president
0:08:39 > 0:08:43of the Lanarkshire Federation of Burns Clubs.
0:08:43 > 0:08:44Was she really? Oh, my goodness.
0:08:44 > 0:08:46I don't think there have been many since!
0:08:46 > 0:08:50Do you think that my dad's interest in Burns then
0:08:50 > 0:08:52came really directly from Granny?
0:08:52 > 0:08:53Came from Granny, oh, aye.
0:08:53 > 0:08:58My mother used to always say, "Burns could sum up a situation
0:08:58 > 0:09:01"and tell you a full story in four lines." Yeah.
0:09:01 > 0:09:04Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
0:09:04 > 0:09:06Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
0:09:06 > 0:09:08Never met - or never parted -
0:09:08 > 0:09:11We had ne'er been broken-hearted.
0:09:11 > 0:09:15Yeah. Now that's a... A whole story, yeah.
0:09:15 > 0:09:20And I suppose he represented for Granny something that she
0:09:20 > 0:09:23understood being a woman in a working-class world.
0:09:23 > 0:09:25The socialist movement.
0:09:26 > 0:09:31Obviously, after school, he ended up going into the pit.
0:09:31 > 0:09:34When Bill came to leave the school at age 14,
0:09:34 > 0:09:37the electrical manager at the pit said,
0:09:37 > 0:09:40"We're looking for an apprentice electrician."
0:09:42 > 0:09:44So Bill got the job and he worked in the pit.
0:09:44 > 0:09:46He worked there for quite a while.
0:09:46 > 0:09:50Men shouldn't have been allowed to go in to the bowels of the earth
0:09:50 > 0:09:52and work the way they worked.
0:09:53 > 0:09:56My dad was an ardent socialist all of his life
0:09:56 > 0:10:01and I can see clearly that there is a connection with
0:10:01 > 0:10:06the sort of more political or egalitarian aspects of Burns.
0:10:06 > 0:10:12# For a' that and a' that
0:10:12 > 0:10:16# Their tinsel show and a' that
0:10:16 > 0:10:24# The honest man, tho' e'e sae pair
0:10:24 > 0:10:30# Is king o' mean for a' that. #
0:10:30 > 0:10:36The Coal Board awarded Dad a scholarship to study singing.
0:10:36 > 0:10:39With his rich bass voice, just about as deep as the mines,
0:10:39 > 0:10:42his dream of becoming an opera singer was finally realised
0:10:42 > 0:10:45when he joined the newly formed Scottish Opera.
0:10:45 > 0:10:48He also started doing a bit of television
0:10:48 > 0:10:51and discovered he had a real knack for it.
0:10:53 > 0:10:56# Duncan Gray cam' here to woo
0:10:56 > 0:10:58# Ha, ha, the wooing o't. #
0:10:58 > 0:11:05# These are my mountains
0:11:05 > 0:11:10# And I'm going home. #
0:11:10 > 0:11:13As a teenager in the '80s, I must confess I did cringe
0:11:13 > 0:11:17at some of that tartanry.
0:11:17 > 0:11:21He really loved wearing the kilt and he was the perfect build for wearing
0:11:21 > 0:11:25the kilt, because he had, to use a word that Burns also uses,
0:11:25 > 0:11:27he had great "hurdies",
0:11:27 > 0:11:31so he was really solid built,
0:11:31 > 0:11:34really good backside, and so the kilt hung very well on him,
0:11:34 > 0:11:39and he felt very comfortable in it.
0:11:39 > 0:11:42But, you know, there were times, my goodness, through the '80s especially,
0:11:42 > 0:11:46where he would have to dress up in other tartan things for the telly.
0:11:46 > 0:11:50I do remember cringing at a few of those outfits,
0:11:50 > 0:11:53and he never seemed to mind!
0:11:53 > 0:11:57He never seemed to mind wearing these awful things with '80s shoulders
0:11:57 > 0:12:01and really garish tartans,
0:12:01 > 0:12:03and yet his own choice, as you can see,
0:12:03 > 0:12:07his own choice in kilt tartan was actually quite classy,
0:12:07 > 0:12:08in many ways.
0:12:08 > 0:12:12It didn't seem to bother him that he was asked to wear hideous things for the telly.
0:12:12 > 0:12:14It just bothered me!
0:12:17 > 0:12:21One of the people who knew Dad from both the Academy of Music
0:12:21 > 0:12:25and his TV tartan heyday is former head of television at BBC Scotland
0:12:25 > 0:12:27and fellow musician, James Hunter.
0:12:30 > 0:12:33When you moved on in your professional lives,
0:12:33 > 0:12:37you then worked together at a time when he did a lot of television.
0:12:37 > 0:12:41Yeah. What kind of things did you do together at the BBC?
0:12:41 > 0:12:45I televised a lot of Scottish Opera's major productions,
0:12:45 > 0:12:48like The Golden Cockerel, that's one you remember.
0:12:48 > 0:12:54# From now on, I'll think of entertainments
0:12:54 > 0:12:57# Carnivals and jesters
0:12:57 > 0:13:03# I'll forget it, all my mirth. #
0:13:03 > 0:13:07I think the thing that impressed me, about his singing of songs
0:13:07 > 0:13:11and Burns in particular, because he was mad keen on Burns,
0:13:11 > 0:13:13was that he knew the poems.
0:13:13 > 0:13:17The poems were the starting point, the words were the starting point,
0:13:17 > 0:13:20and the music was there to emphasise the words,
0:13:20 > 0:13:24not always the case in all singers who just sing the song.
0:13:24 > 0:13:29Duncan Gray, you can hear all the words he sings.
0:13:29 > 0:13:31His diction is perfect.
0:13:31 > 0:13:34# Duncan was a lad o' grace
0:13:34 > 0:13:36# Ha, ha, the wooing o't
0:13:36 > 0:13:39# Maggie's was a piteous case
0:13:39 > 0:13:42# Ha, ha, the wooing o't. #
0:13:42 > 0:13:44He used to, as you know,
0:13:44 > 0:13:47bill himself as the most versatile singer in Scotland.
0:13:47 > 0:13:51I once said to him, "Who said that, Bill, the most versatile?"
0:13:51 > 0:13:53"I did, any objections?" he said, you know.
0:13:53 > 0:13:55So I had no objections.
0:13:55 > 0:13:58And he was the most versatile singer in Scotland, but there you go.
0:14:03 > 0:14:05Lots of the telly stuff was Scottish stuff
0:14:05 > 0:14:09and it was very much that kind of era of light entertainment.
0:14:09 > 0:14:14Gets a bit of criticism nowadays, or people looking back,
0:14:14 > 0:14:18as being a bit kitschy and a bit tartan and a bit...
0:14:18 > 0:14:22It was, because that was the fashion of the time.
0:14:22 > 0:14:25I mean, it was in a tradition going back from Harry Lauder
0:14:25 > 0:14:28to Will Fyffe and all the rest of it, through the theatre.
0:14:28 > 0:14:30Television was just in its infancy in the '70s,
0:14:30 > 0:14:33'70s and '80s, people forget that in Scotland,
0:14:33 > 0:14:36so they naturally borrowed things from the theatre.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40# Flow gently, sweet Afton
0:14:40 > 0:14:45# Among thy green braes... #
0:14:45 > 0:14:50I'm very conscious in my own understanding of Dad
0:14:50 > 0:14:53that his connection to Scotland was very powerful to him,
0:14:53 > 0:14:58and that he really made a decision to be here and to have his career in Scotland.
0:14:58 > 0:15:01I think that is absolutely correct.
0:15:01 > 0:15:06I mean, he felt Scots to the inner core, you know.
0:15:06 > 0:15:10Considering he did about 60 roles, ranging from Wagner
0:15:10 > 0:15:13through to Catiline Conspiracy and modern pieces,
0:15:13 > 0:15:17I mean, he would have been a gift to any opera company abroad.
0:15:17 > 0:15:20I'm extremely proud, as I said earlier,
0:15:20 > 0:15:22to have been born in Scotland... Why? ..and to have this legacy.
0:15:22 > 0:15:25Because I've got things that I can sing about
0:15:25 > 0:15:27and speak about that I believe in.
0:15:27 > 0:15:31Like what? Like the songs and poems of Robert Burns,
0:15:31 > 0:15:34like Scott, like the new tradition that's been taken on
0:15:34 > 0:15:38through Scottish Opera. We're getting opportunities to sing
0:15:38 > 0:15:43Verdi and Mozart and Wagner and Debussy and Massenet in Scotland.
0:15:44 > 0:15:48One piece Dad did combined his love of Burns with his love of opera.
0:15:48 > 0:15:52In 1979, Scottish Opera produced an operatic version
0:15:52 > 0:15:54of The Jolly Beggars for television.
0:15:54 > 0:15:57Until recently, it was thought to be lost.
0:15:57 > 0:16:01Dad was really proud of the production but I've never seen it.
0:16:01 > 0:16:04Linda Ormiston was one of the soloists.
0:16:05 > 0:16:09The Jolly Beggars is a cantata that Burns wrote,
0:16:09 > 0:16:14which is based on a group of slightly lower-class individuals
0:16:14 > 0:16:17coming together in a pub in Poosie Nancie's in Mauchline, of an evening.
0:16:26 > 0:16:28These characters, who are the jolly beggars,
0:16:28 > 0:16:33all sing us a song which is related to their life experience.
0:16:33 > 0:16:38# The first o' my loves was a swaggering blade,
0:16:38 > 0:16:44# To rattle the thundering drum was his trade
0:16:44 > 0:16:47# His leg was sae ticht
0:16:47 > 0:16:49# And his cheek was sae ruddy
0:16:49 > 0:16:55# Transported I was with my sodger laddie. #
0:16:55 > 0:16:58It's a piece that's never published in Burns's lifetime.
0:16:58 > 0:17:02Now it's regarded really as one of Burns's masterpieces.
0:17:02 > 0:17:07# But bless me wi' your heav'n o' chairms
0:17:07 > 0:17:11# An' while I kittle hair on thairms
0:17:11 > 0:17:15# Hunger, cauld, an' a' sic hairms
0:17:15 > 0:17:19# May whistle owre the lave o't
0:17:19 > 0:17:23# At kirns an' weddins we'se be there
0:17:23 > 0:17:26# An' O sae nicely we will fare
0:17:26 > 0:17:31# We'll bowse about till Daddie Care
0:17:31 > 0:17:34# Sing whistle owre the lave o't
0:17:34 > 0:17:36# Whistle owre the lave o't
0:17:36 > 0:17:38# Whistle owre the lave o't
0:17:38 > 0:17:39# Whistle owre the lave o't
0:17:39 > 0:17:41# Sing whistle owre the lave o't
0:17:41 > 0:17:45# The lave o't. #
0:17:45 > 0:17:49It's amazing to see that and it's not at all what I thought it would be.
0:17:49 > 0:17:51I thought... Better?
0:17:51 > 0:17:55Well, miles better. That sounds terrible!
0:17:55 > 0:17:59It's really fantastic, actually.
0:17:59 > 0:18:01We were very jolly because they had real...
0:18:01 > 0:18:03They had real booze, did they?
0:18:03 > 0:18:05Real booze!
0:18:05 > 0:18:08Real wine and lots of beer, as I remember.
0:18:08 > 0:18:14And as the day wore on, the beer got warmer and flatter.
0:18:14 > 0:18:18The really nice thing about that piece is that it's a combination
0:18:18 > 0:18:21of him singing the Scots songs that were so important to him
0:18:21 > 0:18:23and singing them the way he sings them.
0:18:23 > 0:18:27# He hated only to be sad
0:18:27 > 0:18:32# And so the muse suggested
0:18:32 > 0:18:36# His sang that night. #
0:18:36 > 0:18:40But also it being a kind of slightly operatic rendition. Exactly.
0:18:40 > 0:18:44Which also kind of brings out the best in him. The two sides.
0:18:44 > 0:18:46And it kind of combines the two things.
0:18:46 > 0:18:49I mean, he was... it was international standard.
0:18:49 > 0:18:53He was probably one of the first kind of crossover artists,
0:18:53 > 0:18:56you know, to do light music and operatic music,
0:18:56 > 0:19:00and I think people think of your dad as the jolly singer,
0:19:00 > 0:19:02you know, Scottish singer,
0:19:02 > 0:19:06and actually he had so many other facets to his talent, really.
0:19:06 > 0:19:11I still find it quite difficult to watch Dad, actually,
0:19:11 > 0:19:13even after all these years,
0:19:13 > 0:19:17especially in a performance like that because it's absolutely him,
0:19:17 > 0:19:22and so it's quite an emotional experience, actually, to see it.
0:19:22 > 0:19:26For me, that kind of combination of the two things he loved most
0:19:26 > 0:19:31as a singer are just married beautifully in that production.
0:19:31 > 0:19:34My dad was passionate about sharing his love of music and Burns
0:19:34 > 0:19:37with a new generation, as he did with me.
0:19:37 > 0:19:41Opera singer and broadcaster Jamie MacDougall
0:19:41 > 0:19:44attributes his own crossover career to my dad.
0:19:44 > 0:19:46I had done my three-year study here
0:19:46 > 0:19:49at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama,
0:19:49 > 0:19:54and then I went down post-grad to London, the Guildhall.
0:19:54 > 0:19:59And it was suggested to me by someone in the profession
0:19:59 > 0:20:03I should just maybe turn my back on the whole Scottish thing
0:20:03 > 0:20:06and go down to London and pursue the whole classical thing,
0:20:06 > 0:20:10the audience up here... All that sort of stuff.
0:20:10 > 0:20:14And I sort of took that advice.
0:20:14 > 0:20:16I went down, but, you know...
0:20:16 > 0:20:20Scottish music, I've been doing it since I was...
0:20:20 > 0:20:25And it was just very much part of me, so talking to your dad,
0:20:25 > 0:20:28it proved to me that it was possible
0:20:28 > 0:20:34to have a career that would bridge both the traditional,
0:20:34 > 0:20:36in the way that I sing,
0:20:36 > 0:20:39and classical repertoire.
0:20:39 > 0:20:41# But from Glasgow to Greenock
0:20:41 > 0:20:43# And from towns on each side
0:20:43 > 0:20:47# The hammers' ding-dong is the song of the Clyde
0:20:47 > 0:20:49# Oh, the River Clyde
0:20:49 > 0:20:51# The wonderful Clyde
0:20:51 > 0:20:52# The name of it thrills me... #
0:20:52 > 0:20:56What about your own Burns songs? What does Burns mean to you?
0:20:56 > 0:21:02The great thing about Burns's songs is that the words, the melodies,
0:21:02 > 0:21:07are such that they can be performed in all sorts of ways,
0:21:07 > 0:21:11whether it be with a big symphony orchestra or unaccompanied.
0:21:11 > 0:21:16You've got... The base, the material, is so good,
0:21:16 > 0:21:19you can do anything with it.
0:21:19 > 0:21:25# O plight me your faith, my Mary
0:21:25 > 0:21:28# And plight me your lily-white hand... #
0:21:28 > 0:21:30With my colleagues at the University of Glasgow,
0:21:30 > 0:21:33we've been working on the songs that Burns wrote
0:21:33 > 0:21:35for two major contemporary song collections,
0:21:35 > 0:21:38and we'd been exploring these in period performance
0:21:38 > 0:21:41with a group of young musicians.
0:21:41 > 0:21:43# Before I leave Scotia's strand
0:21:43 > 0:21:48# O plight me your faith, my Mary
0:21:48 > 0:21:52# Before I leave Scotia's strand. #
0:21:52 > 0:21:55Very few people know that Burns's songs were initially created
0:21:55 > 0:21:58for publications which people were buying
0:21:58 > 0:22:04and which were very much part of a kind of drawing-room music life
0:22:04 > 0:22:07at the turn of the 19th century.
0:22:07 > 0:22:10This is how the songs would have sounded there or thereabouts
0:22:10 > 0:22:15in Burns's own day, because we're using replicas of instruments
0:22:15 > 0:22:18that would have been in the Edinburgh houses that Burns visited.
0:22:18 > 0:22:23# There was a wife wonn'd in Cockpen, Scroggam
0:22:23 > 0:22:27# She brew'd gude ale for gentlemen
0:22:27 > 0:22:31# Sing auld Cowl lay ye down by me
0:22:31 > 0:22:35# Scroggam, my dearie, ruffum. #
0:22:35 > 0:22:40I'm sure actually that what I do and singing the songs
0:22:40 > 0:22:44and working with the materials that I work with
0:22:44 > 0:22:48does connect me quite strongly with my dad.
0:22:58 > 0:23:01There are a large number of younger performers now
0:23:01 > 0:23:04who are discovering Burns's songs and doing new things with them,
0:23:04 > 0:23:09and of all of those performers, I think Karine Polwart
0:23:09 > 0:23:11is the one who impresses me most.
0:23:11 > 0:23:13What I want to find out is
0:23:13 > 0:23:17if there's any connection at all with the kinds of performances
0:23:17 > 0:23:23that my dad and that generation of singers were involved in
0:23:23 > 0:23:27and what performers like Karine are now doing with Burns.
0:23:27 > 0:23:32# When o'er the hill the eastern star
0:23:32 > 0:23:36# Tells bughtin time is near, my jo
0:23:36 > 0:23:41# And owsen frae the furrow'd field
0:23:41 > 0:23:47# Return sae dowf and weary O... #
0:23:47 > 0:23:52Burns had to have an intimate knowledge of tunes
0:23:52 > 0:23:54and different kinds of tunes actually.
0:23:54 > 0:23:57He used a lot of different kinds of tunes to write very different...
0:23:57 > 0:24:01It's why we've got such a range of different kinds of sets of lyrics.
0:24:01 > 0:24:03For me, the one song where it's really striking,
0:24:03 > 0:24:08the two different tunes that are possible, is Auld Lang Syne,
0:24:08 > 0:24:10which is probably the best known of all his songs.
0:24:10 > 0:24:13And of course, if you're at a big party
0:24:13 > 0:24:16with hundreds or thousands of people,
0:24:16 > 0:24:19the tune that most of us know it to...
0:24:19 > 0:24:23SHE HUMS AULD LANG SYNE
0:24:23 > 0:24:26It's got a really militaristic, bombastic... All join in.
0:24:26 > 0:24:29All-joiny-iny, party feel to it,
0:24:29 > 0:24:34so it's perfect for the purpose of masses of people getting together.
0:24:34 > 0:24:38But it's maybe only in the past 10 or 12 years or so
0:24:38 > 0:24:43I was aware that there's another tune, which is totally different,
0:24:43 > 0:24:46so instead of this party thing you have...
0:24:46 > 0:24:50# Should auld acquaintance be forgot
0:24:50 > 0:24:54# And never brought to mind?
0:24:54 > 0:24:59# Should auld acquaintance be forgot
0:24:59 > 0:25:03# For auld lang syne!
0:25:03 > 0:25:08# For auld lang syne, my jo
0:25:08 > 0:25:12# For auld lang syne
0:25:12 > 0:25:17# We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
0:25:17 > 0:25:21# For auld lang syne. #
0:25:21 > 0:25:24And it's totally different when you hear it that way.
0:25:24 > 0:25:26It's just...
0:25:26 > 0:25:27Oh, it's sad.
0:25:27 > 0:25:31Or there's sadness in it, it's not wholly sad,
0:25:31 > 0:25:37but you get a real sense of pathos and nostalgia
0:25:37 > 0:25:40and the idea of time passing
0:25:40 > 0:25:41and that friends come and they go.
0:25:41 > 0:25:47# For auld lang syne, my dear
0:25:47 > 0:25:52# For auld lang syne
0:25:52 > 0:25:58# We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
0:25:58 > 0:26:04# For auld lang syne. #
0:26:04 > 0:26:09What do you remember about watching those kinds of glitzy Scottish
0:26:09 > 0:26:11programmes when you were in your teens?
0:26:11 > 0:26:13I remember that they were there.
0:26:13 > 0:26:16Everybody was watching the same thing on a weekend
0:26:16 > 0:26:18apart from anything else.
0:26:18 > 0:26:25The songs that were getting sung were Scots songs.
0:26:25 > 0:26:27I was listening to on Top Of The Pops.
0:26:27 > 0:26:31It's very easy now to look back on those programmes
0:26:31 > 0:26:33and just have a mental...
0:26:34 > 0:26:37Oh, my goodness. It's just like, "Would you just look at those?
0:26:37 > 0:26:41"Look at those breeks. Who thought that was a good idea?"
0:26:41 > 0:26:42Yeah, yeah, I did! I did! I do!
0:26:42 > 0:26:45But it had heart, at the time.
0:26:45 > 0:26:50And actually if you can see past all the cheesy aspects of it,
0:26:50 > 0:26:52it still has heart even to listen to it now
0:26:52 > 0:26:55and even within the confines of a very particular kind of
0:26:55 > 0:26:58arrangement and orchestration and all the rest of it.
0:26:58 > 0:27:01It clearly has heart to listen to it now,
0:27:01 > 0:27:04and it kept something alive at that time
0:27:04 > 0:27:06and was fondly received by people.
0:27:06 > 0:27:12# Will ye go, lassie, go
0:27:12 > 0:27:17# And we'll all go together... #
0:27:17 > 0:28:03And it's important just to give credit to a long lineage
0:28:03 > 0:28:07because he had this very round, really reverberant chest.