The Campbells are Coming

[McElmurry]

I have been playing in a slow session for nine months now. Whenever possible we sing the tunes to help get them into our heads. Last session we sang the Campbells are Coming to the tune AKA The Burnt Old Man.

I am curious what the back story is on this song/tune and if there are situations where this song and or tune are best not sung/played.

[Chas]

I suppose it depends on whether you are a MacDonald or not ...

[Liam]

I came across this some time ago:



If you are a Campbell, please don't be offended, some of my favourite soups are from Campbell!

[McElmurry]

I came across this some time ago:



If you are a Campbell, please don't be offended, some of my favourite soups are from Campbell!

Well I guess that explains the alternative tune title, The Burnt Old Man.

[plaid preacher]

I suppose it depends on whether you are a MacDonald or not ...

We Lamont's have the same problem.... not our most favourite tune.

[OC Richard]

Whenever I think of that tune I can't help but remember this classic scene

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aXv1J9ewjY

The Clan Campbell site has the following:

Baile Inneraora, The Town of Inveraray, or The Campbells are Coming: A traditional pipe tune which may be centuries old and to which the Clan marched to many a battle. It was later the March Past of the 1st Battalion The Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders (formerly the 91st Highlanders) and has also formed the theme of songs. The best known song is "The Campbells are Coming" and the tune is now called by no other name.

There are a couple of odd things about that tune. One is that it was so very popular back in the early 20th century that it became THE bagpipe tune (much as Scotland The Brave became after WWII) and, being so overplayed, fell out of favour within the piping community. Though playing in pipe bands etc the first time I had ever heard the tune actually played on the pipes was in that movie.

Another odd thing is that, on the pipes, it is played in the key of G Major over the A drones. This is common in very old traditional tunes, and you'll hear old 18th century reels, strathspeys, and perhaps older pibrochs in the key of G. Newer compositions rarely use that key.

This makes the tune sound, on the pipes, like a strange old Modal tune, though on the fiddle etc it's a straightforward Major tune.

Strictly speaking the key of G on the pipes is G Lydian due to the presence of a raised fourth degree (C#) but tunes lacking the fourth (such as BUNESSAN/Morning Has Broken) come out sounding like ordinary Major tunes; it's the presence of the A drones which makes the tunes sound Modal.

[McElmurry]

OC Richard,

Thanks for the information. I got a kick out of the video but I don't think I could step on my right foot on one. I am pretty sure I would seize up and fall over.

It was interesting hearing the tune on pipes. It does sound like a different tune. Played as a jig in pub I doubt two many folks would connect it with the Campbells.

I have been enjoying the Burke whistle, by the way; thanks for the recommendation.

[Lorna]

I am curious what the back story is on this song/tune and if there are situations where this song and or tune are best not sung/played.

I don't know the origin of the tune but there is a legend associated with the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the Siege of Lucknow where one of the women present either heard the bagpipes playing "The Campbells are Coming" far off before others heard it or it was heard "in a dream". I don't know that there is any truth to this legend or whether it is a product of Victorian romanticism.

[OC Richard]

I did a bit of Googling and people say that Robert Burns wrote the song "The Campbells are Coming" in 1790, and put his song to the traditional pipe tune Baile Inneraora.

This fits Burns' habit of writing new songs and fitting them to old tunes. (Trouble is, the new Burns words tended to make the traditional words fall out of favour... a Gaelic scholar I know described Burns as "the greatest destroyer of traditional Gaelic song".)

Note that Burns uses the nonsense refrain so typical in Gaelic waulking songs "ho ro" (ho ro eile etc).

This site says the pipe tune was composed in 1715 but gives no supporting evidence

http://cornemusique.free.fr/ukcampbellscoming.php