Norrie MacIver and the Glasgow Barons – Songs Of Old Govan
Independent – 4 December 2020
Norrie MacIver is the frontman for Skipinnish and the Glasgow Barons are Govan’s orchestra, here featuring Seonaid Aitken and Katrina Lee on violin, Patsy Reid on viola, cellist Alice Allen and Ben Burnley. Together, this album is a celebration of the neighbourhood’s heritage, the material rooted in social commentary, drawn from stories derived from the community of years past and fusing Scots and Gaelic folk music with a string orchestra.
Arranged by Mhairi Marwick, it opens with the strings and strummed low march Lizzie, a tribute to Lizzie Robinson, who, in 1917, became the first woman to receive an OBE, awarded for her work in munitions at the National Projectile Foundry in neighbouring Cardonald.
Govan was once the hub of the shipbuilding industry and the album pays its first tribute to that memory and heritage with a stirring setting of The Clyde, a poem by Govan’s 19th century poet and boilermaker Bass Kennedy, opening unaccompanied before the instrumentation takes up the anthemic sweep. They return to the theme with, first, MacIver’s pride-filled Govan Boys with its big “build boys build” chorus, and then the slow and steady pace but soaring power of The Pride Of The Clyde as, a hymn to the working men of Govan, he sings of hearing welders making the metal ring.
Returning to specific figures, the slow strum of Soldier Boy tells of Private Lawrence Nealis of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders who lied about his age to sign up and was killed in action, just five days after turning seventeen, while refilling water bottles, and was posthumously awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal. A different heroism is celebrated with Mary, the lively strummed and strings swathed account of Mary Barbour who led the 1915 Govan rent strike leading to the passing of the Rent Restriction Act protecting homes while men were at war, going on to be elected Bailie of Govan.
Two other iconic female figures are also spotlighted. Set to a waltzing melody, Betsy tells of a local Miss Havisham legend from 222 Govan Road where, in the hope her unfaithful fiancé, who jilted her on their wedding day, would one day return, she kept her front door unlocked until her dying day. At one point she was even locked up in an asylum, working as a servant to a widow and her children and ending her days in the poorhouse.
Rather more narratively upbeat is the liltingly fingerpicked Lady Elder, which, with strings providing the bridge, celebrates the philanthropist Isabella Elder, a lawyer’s daughter whose husband founded Fairfield Shipyard, who, as part of her crusade to advance education, gifted Govan with Elder Park and library.
The last of the historical figures referenced is John Murray, an engineering works machine-man who founded the Clydeside Poets Club in the early 1900s, represented here in two of his poems, the first a peat and heather tinged orchestral setting Neilsen And His Bride which tells of a Clyde seafarer who bids his love farewell to sail the seas, finally returning from India to be by her side. The other, also taken from the 1913 collection Govan Rhymes and Poems, the frisky guitar-driven and strings accompanied A Flea In The Lug, the playful tale of how a man’s wife rids him of the annoying insect in his ear that’s ruined his sleep.
The three remaining numbers are all in written and sung in Gaelic, the urgent strum and bluesy folk dance rhythm Cha Tig An Latha another ode to strong working men and the slow march beat Baille Ghobainn, a love letter to Govan that also has the narrator singing of missing his Isle of Lewis home (from whence MacIver comes) and the girl he left behind as he sails to war. The third closes the collection, the driving, tumbling rhythm and lyrics of Latha Na Feille a rousing whirl across the dance floor that speaks of the Govan agricultural fair and the tale of how, refused permission to wed her lover by her minister father, the pair decapitated one of his sheep and carried the head through Govan’s streets, the lyrics also making mention of shipbuilding, football and how Highland Gaels worked as local policemen. Not only an album bursting with pride and passion to stir the heart and blood but a damn fine listen even if you don’t have a tartan stitch to your DNA.
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