> Folk Music > Songs > This Is No' My Plaid

This Is No' My Plaid

[ Roud 6720 ; G/D 5:1063 ; Ballad Index FVS260 ; Bodleian Roud 6720 ; Mudcat 14478 ; trad.]

Sylvia Barnes sang This Is No' My Plaid on her and Jim Barnes' 1991 album Mungo Jumbo.

The Poozies sang Ma Plaid in 1998 on their Pure Records album Infinite Blue. This track was also included in 2000 on their retrospective Raise Your Head.

Aileen Carr sang This Is No My Plaid in 2000 on her Greentrax album Green Yarrow. She noted:

From the Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection. This thinly-disguised ‘Jacobite’ song is a variant of James Hogg's lovely forgery, This Is Nae My Ain House. Composed, like the majority of such songs, after the Young Pretender was in his grave, it appears in the Songs of the North Gathered Together From the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland of 1885, edited by A.C. Macleod and Harold Boulton. This remarkable Victorian compilation (which contains the Englishman Boulton's very own 188's composition, The Skye Boar Song) has had an extraordinary influence on Scottish song and singers.

Fiona Ross sang This Is No' My Plaid in 2020 on her and Shane O'Mara's CD Sunwise Turn. She noted:

I've always been impressed by this song—ever since I first heard it sung by Aileen Carr at a session in Edinburgh. While this version can be read as a love song, there are other verses that include the line “although his name I daurna tell”, hinting at a veiled Jacobite song referring to Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Lyrics

Aileen Carr sings This Is No My Plaid

Chorus (after each verse):
This is no my plaid
My plaid, my plaid
This is no my plaid
Bonnie tho the colours be

The ground o mine is mixed wi blue
I got it frae the lad I loe
He neer has gi'en me cause tae rue
And O the plaid is dear tae me

For mine is silky soft and warm
It wraps me roun frae arm tae arm
And like himself it bore a charm
And O the plaid is dear to me

Frae surly blasts it covers me
He'll me himself protection gie
I'll loe him til the day I dee
His plaid shall aye be dear tae me

The time will come my ain dear lad
When we will tae the kirk and wed
Weel happit in thy tartan plaid
That plaid shall aye be dear to me

This shall then be my plaid
My plaid, my plaid,
This shall then be my plaid
And while I live shall ever be

Fiona Ross sings This Is No' My Plaid

Chorus (after each verse):
This is no' my plaid
My plaid, my plaid
This is no' my plaid
Bonnie tho the colours be

The ground o mine was mixed wi blue
I got it frae the lad I lo'e
He ne'er has gien me cause tae rue
And O the plaid is dear tae me

For mine was silky soft and warm
It wrapped me round frae arm tae arm
And like himself it bore a charm
And O the plaid is dear to me

Frae surly blasts it covers me
He'll me himself protection gie
I'll lo'e him til the day I dee
And O the plaid is dear to me

The time will come my ain dear lad
When we will tae the kirk and wed
Weel happit in the tartan plaid
The plaid will aye be dear to me

This will then be my plaid
My plaid, my plaid
This will then be my plaid
And while I live will ever be