Beth Malcolm

Osmosis

[Lyrics: Beth Malcolm/Trad.]

Who will sing o’ the guising 

When bairnies blether to the auld yins?

Who will sing o’ the Greylag 

Who tak their leave when the leaves turn? 

Who will sing in oor language 

That you love your brother in 

That you tell you story in? 

[Trad lyrics] As I cam in by dunideer, an’ roon by Nether Ha 

There were fifty thoosan’ hielan’ men marchin tae Harlaw 

Wi a diddyayeoh and a fal and the doe, and a diddyayeohayeae 

[Trad lyrics] Ally Bally, ally bally bee 

Sittin’ on yer mammy’s knee 

Greetin’ for a wee bawbee 

Tae buy some coulter’s candy 

(Martyn Bennett/Lizzie Higgins/Trad) What a voice, what a voice  

What a voice I hear 

It’s like the voice of my Willie dear 

But if I had wings like that swallow high 

I would clasp in the erms 

Of my billy boy 

These are the sounds, the songs 

I drank up as a wee one 

Drunk on milk and auld Scots song 

I slept and cried and wailed along 

My folkmosis had begun 

Drinking from the breast 

With wee ears pressed 

To songs that rumbled through my mother’s chest 

These are my sounds, my beats, my rhythms 

And as certain as the rising sun 

My folkmosis had begun