Does anybody out there know what the name of that old Scottish bagpipe tune is.... the one that is played at the reception before the battle?
I believe the 92nd Highlanders also play the same tune as they advance in battle.
Should I check the end credits?
Thanks!
The tune is "Cock of the North"...a traditional march that was (is?)the regimental march of the Gordon Highlanders.
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Yes, "Cock of the North" is correct. In the end credits of the UK version of the film it lists that the 1st Battalion the Gordon Highlanders were used for the movie. Their pipe band seems to be shown in Ball scene playing on period drums and the like in the film. Uniforms for the drummers are correct in yellow!
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I think that the one that they are singing (in the rain) during the retreat is called Macpherson's Lament.
http://www.btinternet.com/~John.Slaven/macphersonslyrics.htm
Farewell ye dungeons dark and strong
The wretch's destiny
MacPherson's time will nae be lang
On yonder gallows tree
Chorus........
Sae rantinlie an sae wantonlie
Sae dauntinlie gaed he
He played a tune an danced it roun
Below the gallows tree
2
Oh what is death but parting breath
On mony a bludy plain
I've daur'd his face and in his place
I scorn him yet again
3
Tak aff this bands from aff this hands
And bring to me my sword
There's nae a man in a' Scotland
But I'll brave him at a word
4
I've lived a life o sturt and strife
An I die by treacherie
It burns my heart I must depart
An not avenged be
5
He's taen his fiddle in his hand
An broke it o'er a stane
Said there's nene on earth shall play on thee
When I'm deed an gone
6
Farewell my friends an comrades a'
Farewell my wife an bairns
There's nae repentancein my breast
For the fiddles in my arms
7
The laird o' Grant that highland saunt
His might and majesty
He pled the cause o Peter Brown
An lets MacPherson dee
8
But the Braco Duff in rage enough
He first laid hands on me
And if that death would not prevent
Avenged would I be
9
As for my life I do not care
If justice would take it's place
And bring my fellow plunderers
Unto the same disgrace
10
Now farewell light thou sunshine bright
And all beneath the sky
May coward shame distain his name
The wretch that dare not die.
Tom516
I wrote to Wilfred Josephs about his credit in the film and he replied and said that all he did was to go to Rome where the Duchess of Richmonds ball was being filmed and record some bagpipe music and military marches with the Gordons.
Interestingly he said that both Nino Rota and Bondarchuk's favoured composer Ovchinnikov (he wrote the music for War and Peace) were both on set.
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"Some others, Pipe Major!"
"Cock O' the North, sir?"
"Auch! Yon's a cheesy tune! You'll no play that!"
Hilarious line from another great piping movie.
"I'm goin' to war...with every one of them carpetbaggin' sons a B!#+c#es!"
"Auch! Yon's a cheesy tune! You'll no play that!"
The point of this line, for any non-British Army geeks out there, being that "Cock of the North" was the regimental tune of the Gordon Highlanders, now alas amalgamated, one of whose nicknames was "The Cheesy Gordons".
You'd certainly get into trouble nowadays for calling them The Gay Gordons !
The sword-dance was certainly performed to the tune of Loudon's Bonny Woods.
MacPherson's Lament was a traditional song about a real 18th Century Highland figure, a reiver (cattle thief), who was caught and sentenced to publicly hang. He had a talent for the fiddle (violin) on which he could play many a Scottish tune. Standing on the gallows platform, he asked for his fiddle one last time. He played some tunes which highly entertained the crowd, then as a finale and last show of defiance, she smashed his fiddle to pieces. (A sort of 18th Century Pete Townshend). He was then strung up. The melody in the film is no doubt the original version, I am certainly aware of a Gaelic peurt-a-beul song which uses that melody. Nowadays, folk singers perform it in a fast 4/4 march version.
Cock O'The North at Waterloo. I recognise the Drum Major - I saw him and the band at the Edinburgh Tattoo around 1969. Just like English regiments, Scottish regiments have regimental marches, though played on the bagpipes. I think the version for the film was recorded in a hall or barrack square.
From memory, a few regiemntal marches have been:- Royal Scots - Dumbarton's Drums; KOSB - Blue Bonnets Over the Border; Cameronians - Within a Mile O' Edinburgh Toon (?); Royal Highland Fusiliers (?); Black Watch - Highland Laddie; Seaforth Highlanders - Caber Feidh; QO Cameron Highlanders - Pibroch O' Donald Dhu; Gordon Highlanders - Cock O'The North; Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders - The Campbells Are Coming.