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Far Over the Forth
[ Roud 3360 ; trad.]
Jeannie Robertson sang Far Over the Forth in a concert in Edinburgh in 1958. This recording by Hamish Henderson was published in 1984 on her Lismor album Up the Dee and Doon the Don.
Ray Fisher recorded Far Over the Forth in 1961 as the title track of her and her brother Archie Fisher's Topic EP Far Over the Forth. All tracks from this EP were included in 1965 on the Topic album Bonny Lass Come O'er the Burn. Norman Buchan commented in the sleeve notes:
An expanded version of a song sometimes attributed to Burns. It is a curious mixture of the folk-sentimental and the literary-sentimental. It was learned from the singing of Lizzie [Higgins], the daughter of the great Aberdeen folk-singer, Jeannie Robertson.
Lizzie Higgins sang Far Over the Forth to Bill Leader in his home in Camden Town, London, on 5 January 1968. This recording was released in 1969 on her Topic album of Scots songs and ballads, Princess of the Thistle.
The same song appears in James Johnson’s The Scots Musical Museum [in] 1787. Lizzie has the words from a printed source but uses a pipe tune from her father’s repertoire as the air.
Ellen Mitchell sang Far O'er the Forth on her and husband Kevin Mitchell's 2001 Musical Traditions anthology Have a Drop Mair. She commented in the album's booklet:
I learned this from the singing of the late Lizzie Higgins, one of my favourite traditional singers. I imagined the woman in the song was from around Edinburgh, but Jock Duncan put me right about the geography of the song. He says the Forth railway bridge is visible in parts of Perthshire and indeed the source of the River Forth is above Stirling, in the Trossachs, which, of course, is near the Breadalbane (or Breadlabane as Lizzie sings it) in the song!
Emily Smith sang Far O'er the Forth in 2005 on her album A Different Life.
Lyrics
Ellen Mitchell sings Far O'er the Forth | Emily Smith sings Far O'er the Forth |
---|---|
Far over the Forth I look at the north, |
Far over the forth I look to the north |
A' the lang summer days amangst the heather and the bracken, |
A’ the lang summer days amangst the heather and bracken |
His father he frowned on the love of his boyhood |
His faither he frowned on the love of his boyhood |
We trysted our love by the cairn on the mountain, |
We trysted oor love by the cairn on the mountain |
So I'll look tae the west as I go to my rest, |
So I’ll look to the west as I go tae my rest |