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The Seasons

[ Roud 16929 ; trad.]

Lizzie Higgins sang The Seasons in 1969 on her Topic album of Scots songs and ballads Princess of the Thistle. Pter Hall noted:

Like many such ‘Calendar’ songs this is probably of literary origin, later taken into oral currency. If this is so the tune has certainly been freely adapted by the traditional singers who have had it in their keeping.

Fiona Ross sang The Seasons in 2017 on her Tradition Bearers album with Tony McManus, Clyde’s Water. She noted:

I first heard this sung by the wonderful Lizzie Higgins. She learned the song from a family friend who had come across it as a Scots poem and put a tune to it. Lizzie repeats a line, instead of which I sing a line that was written by Martyn Wyndham-Read (another of my favourite singers…!).

Lyrics

Fiona Ross sings The Seasons

The hills are clad in purple, and the trees are clad in gold
The autumn wind is sighin for a beauty growing old
The gray grouse in the heather and the wild deer in the glen
I’m dreamin of the sunshine, when I see the spring again

That merry laughing summer, in its mantle cloak of green
The trees and all the flowers, such a beauty tae be seen
But autumn, gentle autumn, wi its quiet eyes of gray
Enwrapt me in the twilight, and stole my hert away