Here’s me performing “The Bard That Sang Stromness” for my first-year class on 9th May. The lyrics are here.
The Bard That Sang Stromness – live
03 Tuesday Jul 2012
Posted Performances
in03 Tuesday Jul 2012
Posted Performances
inHere’s me performing “The Bard That Sang Stromness” for my first-year class on 9th May. The lyrics are here.
23 Monday Apr 2012
Posted Performances
inTags
Edinburgh 2012, George Mackay Brown, Just Rain, Margaret Griffiths, Michael Boyd, My Naked Heart, Snakeskin, Streets of Gold, The Bard that Sang Stromness, The Festival of Spirituality and Peace, The Fringe 1980, The Story So Far, The Wanderer, Wilfred Owen
I’ve been booked by the Festival of Spirituality and Peace to play four concerts in Edinburgh on 6th, 8th, 10th & 12th August at 4pm each day.
They will be printing 10,000 programmes, where my event, “My Naked Heart”, will be described as follows:
“Melodic and melancholic songs on acoustic guitar by Scottish singer/songwriter, Duncan Gillies MacLaurin, who has now lived in Denmark for over two decades. He portrays the natural beauty of where he resides on the west coast of Jutland, pays homage to poets such as George Mackay Brown and Wilfred Owen, and paints the contours of his own personal vision. A complimentary pamphlet of his lyrics will be provided on entry.”
It will also be put on the Festival’s website with links to five of my songs: “The Bard That Sang Stromness”, “The Wanderer”, “Streets of Gold”, “My Naked Heart” and “The Story So Far”.
Hope to see you there then!
P.S. My friend, Michael Boyd, turns 50 on the day of my final concert, and he features in a poem/song I wrote called The Fringe, 1980, published in Snakeskin, October 2008. He can’t be there unfortunately, but I’ve promised to dedicate “My Naked Heart” to him.
P.P.S. I’m only planning to sing two of my sonnets, but one of those is “Just Rain”, my sonnet for Maz, aka Margaret Griffiths.
03 Tuesday Apr 2012
Posted Publications, Releases, Songs
inOne afternoon in May I’ve booked
my passage on a boat
from Scrabster to your Hamnavoe,
the place you lived and wrote.
The town is looking pretty in
its light-green, springtime dress;
the skies are blue in tribute to
the bard that sang Stromness.
That’s a very nice wee plaque they’ve pegged
upon your old abode;
and not that wee, in fact, as I
can read it from the road.
It’s not all that impressive though,
this dreary council house;
it’s funny you were happy to
personify a mouse.
The owl’s inclined to hoot before it flies,
the dog intent on barking till it dies,
the bell designed for ringing.
As bows are meant to shoot a thrilling rain,
and arrows find their mark or fall in vain,
so truth is bent on singing.
There’s a mist around the hilltops now,
a drizzle in the town;
I kid myself I sense your ghost,
George Mackay Brown.
You take me down the pier to watch
the seagulls wheeling free,
then lead me through their yammer to
the chuckles of the sea.
The owl’s inclined to hoot before it flies,
the dog intent on barking till it dies,
the bell designed for ringing.
As bows are meant to shoot a thrilling rain,
and arrows find their mark or fall in vain,
so truth is bent on singing.
I sang this for my first-year students last week. They’re in the middle of a course on GMB. We started with a poem, “The Stranger”, where they had to write a fourth verse from the POV of the stranger, then four stories from A Calendar of Love and two from A Time to Keep and Other Stories.