What a pleasant surprise - a cd with scottish children songs. Being an adult I thought this wasn't for me but I LOVED it! It is just great fun and a real spirit lifter on a bad day with chickens and trains included on some of of the tracks. I am getting one for all of my wee friends including my grandchildren and children in Scotland.

Bonnie Rideout is a show stopping performer as well as a scholar and three time US National Scottish Fiddle Champion. She is the first American invited to perform Scottish Fiddle music a the prestigious Edinburgh International Festival, and was featured on CBS - TV "Sunday Morning" and National Public Radio's "Performance Today" & "Morning Edition." Praised by the Washington Post for her "soulful, elegant and virtuosic fiddle playing," she is a sanctioned Scottish F.I.R.E. teacher and adjudicator and author of three fiddle music books by Mel Bay Publications

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Gi'me Elbow Room

1. MARCHING SONG/SCOTLAND THE BRAVE/AULD LANG SYNE 2:21 Bonnie set this Robert Louis Stevenson poem, "Marching Song" to one of Scotland's most famous pipe marches. 2. GI ME ELBOW ROOM 4:56 The original text to this rhyme is from Galloway in Scotland. It is about a tailor, but Bonnie substituted a variety of musicians in order to introduce Celtic instruments (harp, bodhran, fiddle, guitar, pennywhistle, pipes & children's chorus) which are common in Scottish Traditional music. 3. MORRISON'S JIG 2:14 Bonnie heard this rhyme from a mother bouncing a baby on her knee during her first train ride from London to Edinburgh. The fiddle jig is popular country dance music. 4. MY KINGDOM 1:47 A poem by Robert Louis Stevenon. 5. BOBBIE SAHFTO 1:32 Bobbie Shafto's gane tae sea, siller buckles on his knee: He'll come back an mairry me, Bonny Bobbie Shafto. Bobbie Shafto's fat an fair , combin doon his yalla hair: He's my love forever mair, Bonnie Bobbie Shafto. 6. THE HEN'S MARCH/ TAIL TODDLE 4:57 These songs are almost three hundred years old. At that earlier time , it was popular for fiddlers to imitate birds. It was also common for people to imitate pipers and fiddlers while singing "mouth music" for dancers. Most of the words they sang did not mean very much. 7. HICCUP :08 A Traditional nursery rhyme. 8. HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A LASSIE 1:43 A traditional song. 9. FROM A RAILWAY CARRIAGE 3:43 This was Bonnie's favorite Robert Louis Stevenson poem as a little girl. She remembers asking her father to read it again and again. Each time he read it faster and faster, making it almost as exiting as a real train ride! You will hear his influence in the melody she wrote especially for the poem. 10. THERE WAS A WEE COOPER 1:29 Traditional. Each evening Bonnie and her brother and sister took turns picking the songs we wished to hear at bed time. This is the one tune that never caused any argument! In the recording studio, the University Park children's choir sang it so perfectly and joyfully that Bonnie used their one and ony "first take".. 11. HOKY-POKY, PENNY THE LUMP :11 A Scottish nursery rhyme about ice cream. 12. HURRY BURRY 3:00 The words in the chorus come from a traditional nursery rhyme from the county of Angus in Scotland. That verse inspired Bonnie's song which reflects the condition of many modern households including hers! (Words to this song can be found here.) 13. LOOKING FORWARD :10 A poem by Robert Louis. 14. FIDDLE FROM LOONEY 2:54 Among traditional musician (Irish or Scottish) this poem is perhaps one of W.B. Yeats most well known. Once while rummaging through old school papers in her parents' attic, she discovered a folder of pictures and poems she had written in the autumn of 1970 when she was eight. She was just learning to play the violin, so this poem made a great impression on her. She copied it out and added this simply melody, chorus, and a very happy picture of a dancing fiddler on a hill 15. HICKORY DICKORY DOCK :36 A Nursery rhyme. 16. CORN RIGGS/ THE OLD GREY CAT/SHIPS ARE SAILING 5:37 A Nursery rhyme and traditional reels. 17. MY BONNIE LIES OVER THE OCEAN 2:10 A traditional song. 18. WEE WILLIE WINKIE 2:15 A Scottish nursery rhyme. 19. OH DEAR! WHAT CAN THE MATTER BE 3:40 A traditional rhyme which probably originated in Aberdeenshire. Robert Chambers included it in his book, Popular Rhymes, in 1826. 20. NORTH-WEST PASSAGE/CRADLE SONG 3:43 This Robert Louis Stevenson poem is set to one of Scott Skinner's most famous melodies.

You can find more articles in the archive under Notes on Celtic Music.