Patrick O’Donnell wrote this review.
If you could boil down all traditional Celtic music and reduce it to one common ingredient, you’d end up with “oral tradition.” Clans and, before them, tribes, used songs to pass history down through the generations. Ballads told of great romances, long journeys, strong alliances and bitter hatreds. But most of all, there were the battles.
The Celts were (and still are, to some extent) notorious for fighting amongst themselves, and those who fought were as likely to become cannon fodder as they were to become fodder for the next song. The wonderful thing about this tradition of immortalizing events through music is that it continued long after scholars started recording events in books. So, although you can read about the fight for “good King Chairlie,” laid out before you in black and white, with footnotes and addenda and indexes and appendices, wouldn’t you rather see it in your mind’s eye, hear the battle cries, feel the wrenching pain as brave warriors fall and experience the surge of joy and swell of pride as the victorious clans march home?
If you answered yes, then The King Has Landed is a must-hear. It’s oral tradition at its best, living history at its most vivid. This concept album, a look at the Jacobite (from Jacobus, the Latin word for James) uprisings, melds traditional songs such as “Ye Jacobites by Name” and “Johnny Cope” with newer compositions like “The Massacre of Glencoe” and “Strong Women Rule us All with their Tears.” The amalgamation is almost seamless.
Bookending the album are the swirling, skirling sounds of the Drambuie Kirkliston Pipe Band, from Edinburgh. The opener, “The King Has Landed in Moidart,” blends an eerie synthesizer with the sounds of the ocean lapping the shore; in the background bagpipes echo as a bell tolls. The music gradually swells into the full number. It’s almost like a statement: what you are about to hear is full of heroism and history, tragedy and treachery. It’s an ominous opener, and quite appropriate for the subject matter this collection tackles.
The ending tune, the traditional “Will Ye No Come Back Again,” was a plea to Charles Edward Stuart — “Bonnie Prince Charlie” — to return to Scotland. He never did, and thus the period of Jacobite Rebellions — 1708 to 1746 — ended with the battle of Culloden Moor. Many of his Highland followers were slaughtered, and Charlie was spirited away to France.
The uprisings spurred the English to impose the Disarming Act of 1746. It banned Scots from bearing arms, wearing clan tartans and playing bagpipes, a source of resentment even today. Happily, the Act didn’t last, as evidenced by artists such as The Corries, The Whistlebinkies, Jim Malcolm and all the others that contributed to this 18-track collection.
All the selections on this album are moving, but a few of them had me ready to either leap from my chair, brandishing a broadsword, or fall to my knees and weep for the dead. Ahh, the power of music. “Rise, Rise,” a call to arms for the Stuart supporters, falls into the former category. With the Corries performing lyrics like these, who can resist?
Rise! Rise! Lowland and Highland men,
Bald sire and beardless son, each come, and early:
Rise! Rise! Mainland and Island men,
Belt on your broad swords and fight for Prince Charlie!Men of the mountains descendants of heroes!
Heirs of the fame and the hills of your fathers –
Say, shall the Sassenach southron not fear us,
When fierce the war-peal each plaides clan gathers?
But this disc is not all about rallying men to battle. Quite a few of the songs offer a look at the horrors of war. “The Massacre of Glencoe,” a new composition (new as in 1992, as opposed to the 1700s), tells how the English Protestant government sanctioned the slaying of the Glencoe MacDonalds after the Jacobites were victorious at the battle of Killiecrankie. The killers posed as weary travelers seeking shelter for the night. As soon as their hosts were asleep, the guests rose up and slew them to a man. The next morning, 35 lay dead and the clan was effectively shattered. Alastair McDonald’s plaintive telling of this chilling tale will send shivers down your spine.
“Ye Jacobites by Name,” the second song on the disc, is a cry for peace. Ian Bruce’s heart-rending version of this standard brings the point home all too clearly: battle brings naught but bloodshed.
Though his soldiers paid the highest price, Bonnie Prince Charlie did not escape unscathed. History books say he was full of fire and promise when he began his long struggle for the throne that would always be out of his reach. By “The Summer of ’46” he was all but a broken man. The many defeats had caught up with him, and he was said to be more interested in his next drink than his next battle. He escaped to France after a long and trying journey across the country, depending on those who once had fought for him to hide him and feed him. Robin Laing’s look back on the prince’s flight is emotional, beautiful, and remorseful. It’s one of the finest songs on the album.
My final favorite from this collection is James Malcolm’s take on “Awa Whigs Awa.” Malcolm’s deep, resonant voice is perfect for Robert Burns’ satirical poke at the Whigs, who fought the Stuarts’ claim to the throne.
The King Has Landed is one of the finest examples of traditional Scottish music I have heard in a long time. Not only is it a wonderful collection of tunes, it is a veritable history book set in song. This extraordinary work belongs in any self-respecting collection of Celtic music.
(Greentrax, 2002)
If you’d like to learn more about the Jacobite risings online, I found these sites particularly helpful in my research:
| Highlander Web Magazine (Jacobite Rebellion) | Rampant Scotland (Bonnie Prince Charlie bio) | Electric Scotland (English to Scots Vocabulary) |
