Dick Gaughan: Now Westlin Winds

SONG Now Westlin Winds

SONGWRITER Robert Burns (1759-1796)

PERFORMED BY Dick Gaughan

APPEARS ON Handful Of Earth (1981), Live In Edinburgh (1985), The Definitive Collection (2006), Gaughan Live! At The Trades Club (2008)

NOTES 1. The "westlin winds" are the west or western winds. 2. A moorcock is also known as a red grouse. 3. As used in "Now Westlin Winds," a fell is an upland stretch of open country. 4. Because birds play such an important role in this song, I've linked to a photograph or drawing of each bird mentioned in the lyrics.

The Scottish poet Robert Burns collected and wrote songs, among them "Now Westlin Winds," interpreted here by the great Scottish folk singer Dick Gaughan. On his notes for the song, Gaughan wrote of "Now Westlin Winds":

Learned over a period of years, a verse at a time, from Geordie Hamilton -- a man who tantalizes other singer by singing them a verse or two of a gem, then saying, "Ah, you don't really want to hear that", and singing something else. A song learned from Geordie is a testimony to patience, a great man and a giant of a singer. Burns is often regard as a poet of little significance by those ignorant of his finest work. It is sad that his greatness are better appreciated in other places and other cultures. (From Handful of Earth)

The lovely melody of "Now Westlin Winds" cloaks its lyrical complexity, for Gaughan sings of environmental lover's paradise that is also a hunter's dream. Burns contrasts the "sportsman's joy" with the "charms of nature," creating a world large enough for "the savage and the tender." Against this backdrop, the poet pursues his own game, the charms of "Peggy dear." The question arises as to whether he is lover or seducer, whether his professions of love are actually flattery as dangerous to Peggy as "slaughtering guns." Gaughan's interpretation of "Now Westlin Winds" is so delicate as to argue for the poet's sincerity; in the end it has the effect of playing love and seduction against one another.

Burns' ecological vision is startlingly contemporary. In addition to the simple beauties of birds in autumn, he recognizes a complex avian ecosystem in which "Some social join and leagues combine/Some solitary wander." That is, some birds fly in flocks while others toil alone. All live in risk of "the cruel sway/Of tyrannic man's dominion." As far back as the 18th Century, Robert Burns perceived the dangers of man to nature and warned against them: "Avaunt! Away!"

In "Now Westlin Winds," the masculine figure of the hunter represents mankind as both lover and exploiter of nature. Which brings us back to the poet and his Peggy: The poet is lover and seducer, and Peggy must discern which is which and when. In this sense, she not only represents nature but conflicted human nature as well, walking the eternal tightrope between the savage and the tender, searching for the nexus of love and seduction. For who among us does not want to be loved and seduced?

LYRICS

Now westlin winds and slaughtering guns
Bring autumn's pleasant weather
The moorcock springs on whirring wings
Among the blooming heather
Now waving grain, wild o'er the plain
Delights the weary farmer
And the moon shines bright as I rove at night
To muse upon my charmer

The partridge loves the fruitful fells
The plover loves the mountain
The woodcock haunts the lonely dells
The soaring hern the fountain
Through lofty groves the cushat roves
The path of man to shun it
The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush
The spreading thorn the linnet

Thus every kind their pleasure find
The savage and the tender
Some social join and leagues combine
Some solitary wander
Avaunt! Away! the cruel sway,
Tyrannic man's dominion
The sportsman's joy, the murdering cry
The fluttering, gory pinion

But Peggy dear the evening's clear
Thick flies the skimming swallow
The sky is blue, the fields in view
All fading green and yellow
Come let us stray our gladsome way
And view the charms of nature
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn
And every happy creature

We'll gently walk and sweetly talk
Till the silent moon shines clearly
I'll grasp thy waist and, fondly pressed,
Swear how I love thee dearly
Not vernal showers to budding flowers
Not autumn to the farmer
So dear can be as thou to me
My fair, my lovely charmer