Flower of Scotland (2012) – Amy Macdonald

In April this year I wrote a post about the movie Local Hero (1983) and I recalled how I watched Amy Macdonald’s rendition of Flower of Scotland with my kids. Scotland had just beaten Spain in the Euro qualifiers so we were ‘happy chappys‘. My family ancestry partly originates from Scotland, so I have always had a penchant for anything Scottish. I remember in my young adulthood enthralled watching Billy Connolly’s World Tour of Scotland over and over again.

I was in a cafe / restaurant here in Bogota maybe a year or so ago and I heard a song come on the speakers, which just blew me away. I scrolled down some of the chorus so I could look it up later. The song is This is The Life by Amy Macdonald which I will review when we get down into the ‘T’s of the alphabet of songs in this Music Library Project. God knows when that might be, since I’m still onto the ‘L’s and sometimes I backtrack adding new songs to the list such as today’s featured track.

O Flower of Scotland
When will we see your like again?
That fought and died for
Your wee bit Hill and Glen
And stood against him
Proud Edward’s Army
And sent him homeward tae think again

The Hills are bare now
And Autumn leaves lie thick and still
O’er land that is lost now
Which those so dearly held
That stood against him
Proud Edward’s Army
And sent him homeward tae think again

I was captivated watching this performance, but it didn’t occur to me initially that it was Amy Macdonald the Scottish singer – songwriter whose song I had recently heard in that cafe. When I woke up and realised it was her, well that raised my appreciation of this even more. There is so much to like about this video. Apart from her stupendously powerful delivery, there are five ‘quirky’ things in it that I always like revisiting. This will take me some time to unpack, so excuse my long windedness.

OK here goes: To set the scene.. it’s ‘Hampden Park’, Glasgow and I remember Billy Connolly doing a bit on how fervent and audacious the football fans are in Scotland and also how bitterly cold and windy it can get.

1. Now watch, how with each exhalation from Amy turns into a cloud of mist due to how frickin’ cold it is.

2. The elation on the kids’ faces when the camera scans over them especially the girl in the penultimate position. Her beaming smile is gorgeous.

3. Ok, it is my understanding there is this thing with their national anthem, and it is / was common. When it is sung ‘And stood against him‘. The crowd bellows, ‘Against Who?’ and then ‘Proud Edward’s Army‘. This is when many chant ‘Basterds‘. I have watched many recent anthems of Flower of Scotland and the TV coverage or audio never captures this in their footage or it may be that people can’t / won’t say that anymore.

4. If you watch the actual paying fans, they are so windswept in the occasion and at 1:00 they show some delegate, politician or official in suit and tie singing it like, ‘Shit do I have to do this again‘?

5. Amy Macdonald concludes her magnificent performance yelling ‘Come on Scotland‘! But her walk-off grin and humility in her persona (very Scottish.. mind you) is the stuff you don’t see often from popular commercial artists.

Flower of Scotland is an unofficial national anthem of Scotland. The song was composed in the mid-1960s by Roy Williamson of the folk group the Corries. You could compare it to Australia’s unofficial anthem, ‘I am Australian‘ which I wrote about in August last year. In July 2006, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted an online poll (publicised by Reporting Scotland) in which voters could choose a national anthem from one of five candidates. 10,000 people took part in the poll, in which “Flower of Scotland” came out the winner with 41% of the votes.

Reference:
1. Flower of Scotland – Wikipedia