{"id":2079,"date":"2020-06-09T16:51:06","date_gmt":"2020-06-09T16:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leedspipeband.org.uk\/content\/?p=2079"},"modified":"2020-06-09T16:51:07","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T16:51:07","slug":"tune-origins-farewell-to-the-creeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leedspipeband.org.uk\/content\/tune-origins-farewell-to-the-creeks\/","title":{"rendered":"Tune Origins &#8211; Farewell to the Creeks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>About the only thing the various commentators agree on is that this tune was written by PM James Robertson (1886 \u2013 1961), from Banffshire, up in the northeast of Scotland.\u00a0 He was a piper with the 1<sup>st<\/sup> Battalion Gordon Highlanders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"256\" height=\"449\" src=\"https:\/\/leedspipeband.org.uk\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/PM-James-Robertson.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2080\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>As to the date of composing the tune, some accounts have it as 1915 when James was a POW in Germany following the capture of large numbers of the unsuccessful British Expeditionary Force sent to France in 1914.\u00a0 He composed it during a lengthy sentence to solitary confinement, having persistently refused to undertake military-related work for the Germans.\u00a0 He was better rewarded for this stubbornness after the war when he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal.\u00a0 Other accounts, however, put the date of composition at 1919 when James was serving in Limerick, Ireland, having rejoined his regiment after the war ended.\u00a0 At neither date would life have been much of a picnic, so either could equally well account for the distinctly poignant feel of the piece, especially for a march.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What are \u2018The Creeks\u2019?\u00a0 This has also divided opinion.\u00a0 Some relate it to the North American people of that name &#8211; properly the Muscogee.\u00a0 They were known as \u2018Creeks\u2019 to the British in reference to the topography of their settlements.\u00a0 Some 18th-century Scottish settlers were among the Europeans who intermarried with them, leaving behind names like MacIntosh and MacGillivray, still extant.\u00a0 When they left following British defeat in the Independence War, Creek tradition has it that they left behind a farewell song, sadly lost over the years.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s a lovely story, but the most likely Creeks referred to in the title must be those at Portknockie on the Moray coast. They are spectacular rocky inlets, near where James grew up, the sort of place that would ingrain itself into the soul of any child for life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is, of course, a song to James\u2019 tune.\u00a0 This dates to 1943 when Hamish Henderson, an Intelligence Corps officer serving in Sicily, heard the pipes and drums of the 153 Brigade playing \u2018Farewell To The Creeks\u2019.\u00a0 He was immediately inspired to write lyrics, calling his song \u2018The Highland Division\u2019s Farewell To Sicily\u2019. Originally from Perthshire, Henderson was an accomplished poet, song collector and scholar.\u00a0 He was the man charged with accepting the surrender of Italian forces in 1945.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His song contains some wonderful verses.\u00a0 Two of them, in particular, encapsulate with utter accuracy the difference between pipers and drummers to this day:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The pipie is dozy the pipie is fey<br \/>He wullnae come roon for his vino the day<br \/>The sky o&#8217;er Messina is unco and grey<br \/>And a&#8217; the bricht chaulmers are eerie<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The drummie is polisht, the drummie is braw<br \/>He cannae be seen for his webbin ava<br \/>He&#8217;s beezed himsel&#8217; up for a photy and a&#8217;<br \/>Tae leave wi&#8217; his Lola his dearie<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the ever-helpful spirit of Stanley Baxter, that great explicator of the Scottish tongue to southerners and the people of Corstorphine and Milngavie, I offer this paraphrase in the Queen\u2019s English:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">The piper is rather sleepy today<br>He has overdosed on the Chardonnay<br>The Sicilian sky is leaden grey<br>Giving all a foreboding air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">The drummer is spruce, an immaculate sight<br>In buckles and belts, he glows like a light<br>To pose for the camera, at his full height,<br>To ease his sweetheart\u2019s despair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Drummer) George.<\/p>\n\n\n<a href=\"https:\/\/leedspipeband.org.uk\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Farewell-to-the-Creeks.pdf\" class=\"pdfemb-viewer\" style=\"\" data-width=\"max\" data-height=\"max\"  data-toolbar=\"bottom\" data-toolbar-fixed=\"off\">Farewell-to-the-Creeks<br\/><\/a>\n<p class=\"wp-block-pdfemb-pdf-embedder-viewer\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"http:\/\/leedspipeband.org.uk\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Farewell-to-the-Creeks.wav\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"excerpt\">About the only thing the various commentators agree on is that this tune was written by PM James Robertson (1886 \u2013 1961), from Banffshire, up in the northeast of Scotland.\u00a0 He was a piper with the 1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders. As to the date of composing the tune, some accounts have it as 1915 when James was a POW in&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/leedspipeband.org.uk\/content\/tune-origins-farewell-to-the-creeks\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tune","xfolkentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Tune Origins - Farewell to the Creeks &middot; The City of Leeds Pipeband<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/leedspipeband.org.uk\/content\/tune-origins-farewell-to-the-creeks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tune Origins - Farewell to the Creeks &middot; The City of Leeds Pipeband\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"About the only thing the various commentators agree on is that this tune was written by PM James Robertson (1886 \u2013 1961), from Banffshire, up in the northeast of Scotland.\u00a0 He was a piper with the 1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders. 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