‘Vast store of Scottish songs

revealed by folk song revival

THERE IS A vast store of popu-
lar songs, some old, some new,
created by the Scottish people.

The majority are unknown to
the general public, even in Scot-

land itself, or were unknown un- ©

til the recent revival of folk songs
and ballads. Only now are some
of these songs being published,
collected from living singers or,
retrieved from old collections in
which they. have long lain neglect-
ed. ,
The bothy songs, sung by farm-
workers in the bothies or cabins
wliere they slept and passed the
evenings, are a revelation of the
salty wit and sturdy spirit of the
‘Scottish country workers.

A vivid picture of farm life
under a farmer “hard and sair”
is given in “Drumgeldie”:

“At five o’clock we quickly rise

’ And hurry doon the stair;

is there to corn our horses,
Likewise to straik their hair.

We've scarcely got our brose weel
supt
And gi‘en our pints a tie,
When ‘the foreman cries ‘Hallo,
my lads!’
The hour is drawing nigh.”

- The proud, honest independ-

‘ence of the workers is the theme

-of “the Working Chap” who says:

"Just look at a man wi’ a housefvu’

o’ bairns,
To rear them up tak’s a’ he
earns,
Wi a willing heart and a coat gey
thin

He‘s workin’ life out to keep
life in.” ;

Just as the ploughmen sing —
that the rest of the world can’t
manage without them, so do the
weavers and the other workers
emphasise their own indispens-
ability. ;

@ake this, from “The Wark 0’
the Weavers’:

“The hireman chiels they mock
us and crack aye aboot’s;

They say that we are thin-faced
bleached like cloots;

But yet for a‘ their mockery they
canna dae wi‘oot's, _

Na! They canna want the wark o’

the weavers.” :

(“Want” it should be said,
means to do without.)

Published Scottish love songs
have suffered severely from the
“pruning knife of polite hypoc-
risy” wielded by the Presbyterian
Church and those who came un-
der its prudish influence.

But “the unknown folk poets
and anonymous singers continued
to celebrate love, not love as an
abstraction but the act of love
itself.”

So the song “Kissin’s No Sin”
went:

“Some say that kissin’s a sin;
But | think it’s nane ava.

For kissin’ has woon’d in this

: world
Since ever there was two.
Oh if it wasna lawfu’, lawyers
wouldna allow it;
If it wasna holy, Ministers would-
na do it;

It it wasna modest, maidens

wouldna tak it;
if it wasna plenty, puir folks
wouldna get it.”

Many of these songs have now
been published in Britain by the
Workers’ Musical Association in
a book, Scotland*Sings by Ewan
MacColl. It includes many of the
better known old favorites—“The
Keach in the Creel,” “Johnny

Lad” and “The Day We Went to

Rothesay.” ;
—MALCOLM MacEWEN

BOOKS

NO, THEY NEVER died. The
condemned cell at Sing Sing may

—or- may not—be empty. Their

names _may have disappeared
from the pages of the yellow

press—into whose columns they
were forced by that great world
tide of opinion which swept to
its massive heights last June. But
for countless millions throughout
the world the names of the mar-
tyred Rosenbergs are engraved

New star in
Moon is Blue

IN The Moon is Blue a new
overnight star, Maggie McNa-
mara, brings to the screen a
strikingly unusual face, a pro-
voeative horsetail of dark hair
and a demure self-assurance.

She plays the part of a virtu-
ous young lady from Brooklyn
whose honesty of purpose is mis-
understood by the man who picks
her up (William Holden) and by
an elderly cad (David Niven).

The film suffers from its stage
origin in being virtually confined
of four characters, three sets
and the sort of dialogue and situ-

ation designed to appeal primar-

ily to middle-class theatre audi-
ences.

In spite of the author’s appar-
ent conviction that references to
virginity and seduction are wildly
funny, the dialogue is in fact fre-

quently amusing. :

on the heart and mind for all
time.

And they are yet feared by’

those who killed them. The Mc-

Carthyites continue to scurry

around after “further evidence,”
and even the children have recent-
ly been prevented from going to
school by some maliciously vin-
dictive local official.

The Rosenbergs have left be-
hind them not only the memory

BOOK SALE

People’s Co-operative Bookstore -

337 W. Pender Street

Phone MA 5836

SALE STARTS MON., JANUARY 25

AND ENDS. SAT. FEBRUARY 6

THOUSANDS OF BOOKS AT 25-75% OFF LIST PRICE

ART BOOKS @ TECHNICAL BOOKS @ LABOR BOOKS
FICTION @ CURRENT EVENTS ~

~ OUR BIGGEST SALE — IT WILL NOT BE REPEATED

Books on sale will be displayed in Lower Hall, Pender Auditorium (rear of store)
Hours 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, including’ Wednesday

Soviet TV ‘infinitely richer’ -

“The world may soon be looking to Russia for ideas in TV,” wrote
Edward Crankshaw in the London Observer last week. Soviet screens
are small but the number of television viewers is large, and the
government is going ahead with construction of a network of some
80 stations. Crankshaw termed the programs “infinitely richer”

than those in Britain and the U.S.

of a brutal murder of innocents
by men bent on war. They have
left behind not only a black page
in the annals of U.S. legal history.
In their letters to each other, and
to their friends, they leave a great
and courageous literature, now
presented in permanent form in
The Rosenberg Letters (obtainable
here at the People’s Cooperative
Bookstore, 337 West Pender
Street). :

: o*k * x

THE REACTION on reading
these poignant exchanges between
man and wife on the threshold
of death is one of profound hu-
MULVe. ce

Their steadfastness, their re-
fusal to buy their~lives with a
false confession of guilt, and,
above all, the quality of their
culture, reduce to pygmies. all
those who contributed to their
murder. And running as a vein

_ through their letters is the de-

velopment of Julius and Ethel as
individuals, who become strength-
ened and’ matured as their death
draws nearer.

These letters are permeated
with the shining innocence of the
Rosenbergs, with the powerful

. intensity of their love for each

other and for their children. An

all-embracing love — a love of

people, of life itself and all the
pleasures, big and small, that life
can bring. ‘

“Now I. kneel down to a
crevice in the concrete, filled
with earth painstakingly ac-
cumulated from the underpart
of moss, small velvety clumps
of which cling to the damp,
cool parts of the yard where
the sun’s rays rarely penetrate.
In this crevice an apple seed
which I planted, and have wat-
ered patiently, is sprouting
bravely.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JANUARY 22, 1954 — PAGE 8

Rosenberg letters are enduring testimony

So wrote Ethel in May 1951.
And in October 1951:

“The birds are busying them-

selves with the bread I had

. scattered for them before com-

ing in for the night, and their

merry sound makes me want to
answer them in song.”

This was Ethel. Kind, gentle.
Now listening to classical music,
now following the fortunes of the
famed Brooklyn Dodgers or play-
ing baseball on the prison roof!
Worrying about the children,
about their clothes—at the same
time: determined they should
grow up “rounded people.”

Julius, reading books on nature,
history, economics, politics, sci-
ence, as well as the great classics
of literature. Playing chess and
also following the Dodgers. Above
all, studying the legal aspects of
the case, helping his lawyer and
friend, Manny Bloch, in the fight,
and welcoming the world-wide
support which poured over those
bleak prison cells.

“We are just ordinary peo-
ple, similar in many ways to
the writers of the letters and
other thousands of our fellow-
citizens, and in our case they
see part of themselves, and the
thought strikes them that they,
too, are threatened with similar
catastrophe.”

It should need no exhortation
to sell this book. Its sale will
help to maintain the orphaned
Rosenberg children, Michael and
Robert. Further, its sale will
give expression to the continuing
campaign to clear the name of the
Rosenbergs and secure the release
of Morton Sobell, who is serving
a 30-year sentence in Alcatraz
prison for alleged “complicity”
with the Rosenbergs.

“—BERT BAKER