Cuckoo Bird (Appalachian Folk Ballad) - Sam & Norman Shackleton

RIP my father Norman Shackleton, 1952-2023. Today would have been his birthday and it’s also just over a year since he passed away. So I’m sharing and remembering my favourite video of us busking together playing the Appalachian folk ballad “Cuckoo Bird” on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh Scotland. He was in his element here, nothing made him happier than busking out on the streets with me.❤️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

I thought I’d also share this fitting wee Scots poem by Hugh MacDiarmid which I love and have been thinking about a lot today:

At My Father’s Grave

“The sunlicht still on me, you row’d in clood,
We look upon each ither noo like hills,
Across a valley. I’m nae mair your son.
It is my mind, nae son o’ yours, that looks,
And the great darkness o’ your death comes up
And equals it across the way.
A livin’ man upon a deid man thinks,
And ony sma’er thocht’s impossible.”

(English translation)

“The sunlight still on me, you shadowed in cloud.
We look upon each other now like hills,
Across a valley. I’m no more your son.
It is my mind, not a son of yours, that looks,
And the great darkness of your death comes up,
And equals it across the way.
A living man upon a dead man thinks,
And any smaller thought is impossible.”

#busking #folkmusic #banjo #clawhammer #appalachia #appalachianmusic #countrymusic #edinburgh #scotland