In Celebration of Rabbie Burns

Last night was Burns Night, a holiday honoring Scottish national poet Robert (affectionately “Rabbie”) Burns. In Scotland, folks spend that evening in celebration, which typically involves lots of whisky and, yes, sometimes an Address to a Haggis. Burns wrote tons of poetry and songs in the late 18th Century and contributed so much to Scottish culture in his 37 years that he’s still a very present element of Scottish identity today. You might be familiar with his most famous tune, Auld Lang Syne, which many of us perhaps sang just a few weeks ago at the turn of the year.

In honor of Burns Night I wanted to share a quick recording I did this morning of one of my favorite works of his. This song is known by a few titles, including “For a’ That an’ a’ that,” “A Man’s A Man,” and “Is There for Honest Poverty”. This song struck me this week because I was thinking about how Burns would have been aware of the American, French, and Haitian revolutions happening during his lifetime. Knowing that, the themes of liberty and inherent human worth in these lyrics seems especially powerful.

Burns wrote in Scots, which can be a little difficult to parse if you aren’t used to hearing it. Contrary to popular belief, Scots is not just “English with a Scottish accent”! Scots falls somewhere between a dialect of English and its own separate language - it developed concurrently with English and is considered one of three national languages in Scotland (along with UK English and Gaelic). As such, it has its own vocabulary and wonderful idioms…and translation is helpful for those of us who didn’t grow up hearing or speaking it.

I’m including the Scots lyrics here, and you’ll hear my meager attempt at singing the Scots in the posted audio file.