Peacock's tail feathers

Trad Irish Music
1

BTW - haven’t listened to the original clip to which madjackoftheboneyard referred in the recent ID thread (YT clip is no longer available), but re. Peacock’s Feather, the major hornpipe of the pair recorded by Frankie Gavin under that name, you all may be interested in the following mystery, to which I finally found the answer a while ago after many years of searching.

A long time ago in Ireland or in England someone (can’t remember who or where) told me that this tune was the theme tune, played by Jimmy Shand, for a regular BBC radio program, and was picked up by Irish musicians from the radio.

I made periodic efforts to discover the truth of this story, asking many far and wide, with no luck.

A couple of years ago I found what I took to be the Scottish parent of the tune while browsing this page: http://www.raretunes.org/performers/will-starr/ Go down to the clip of “Glasgow Highlanders”.

With this information I asked some aging Scottish button box players (i.e. about my own vintage), one of whom replied as follows:

“The Glasgow Highlanders” was the theme music for the BBC (Scottish Home Service) programme > The McFlannels> . Think “The Broons” on radio, or “The Archers” relocated to Govan.

I remember hearing it when I was about 5 years old. I’m sure it was on on a Saturday night, probably immediately before “Scottish Country Dancing”.

Decades-old mystery solved. So there you go. You can all call it the Glasgow Highlanders now :stuck_out_tongue:

2

You’re talking about https://thesession.org/tunes/665 ?

3

Nice detective work, Steve. :thumbsup:

Based on that clip of “Glasgow Highlanders”, I should think so. And The Session 665 is indeed the second tune of the Gavin & Finn set.

4

Yes, that’s the tune. I see Kenny has referred to The Glasgow Highlanders in the comments on thesession.org.

He may or may not have learned of the connection from me, because I revealed this story some time before on a now-dead forum we were both members of. At that time this page on the BBC Scotland website linked to a clip of a bit of the McFlannels program, but no more. A pity, because it was fascinating stuff.

I just wish I could remember who told me that musicians in Ireland got it off the wireless. :frowning: