Doh Ray Me, When Ah Wis Wee

Adults may lament that today’s Scots children do not sing in the playground, but the kids know better. Hundreds of hilarious, energetic, surreal, nonsensical and alarming rhymes and songs are still in use, some over 200 years old, others as new as today’s TV ads. Doh Ray Me, the first comprehensive account of Scots children’s lyric lore, investigates what has been lost and what has replaced it, looking at the arcane riches of the past as well as the absurd glories of today.

Over 800 Scots lyrics taken from publications and unpublished collections from the 1820s to 2006 include the stories of Coulter’s Candy and Aunty Mary’s Canary; the ancient pipe tune that became ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’ and the Scots ancestry of ‘The Mulberry Bush’, ‘The Hokey Cokey’ and ‘Old King Cole’. There are songs for skipping, hand-clapping, games, guises, wordplay and trickery.

Ewan McVicar, one of Scotland’s best-known storytellers and song writers, has collected songs in over 40 Scottish schools to create the first publication of the ‘hidden’ songs of Scots childhood. The songs featured include honest vulgarity, violence, football and anti-school ditties.

Ewan McVicar was born in Inverness in 1941. He worked as a banker in Scotland and Africa, then as a guitar teacher in the USA. On his return to Scotland, he was employed in various areas of social work before becoming a self-employed storyteller and songwriter. He has performed in over 200 schools and in castles, museums, folk festivals and other venues across Britain, as well as in Canada, the USA, Holland and Russia. He has written some 40 songs which have been commercially recorded, including 20 for the Singing Kettle children’s show. He lives in Linlithgow.