Alasdair Roberts & James Green: The Ugly Mountain.

Words: Timothy Neat.  Music: Alasdair Roberts.  Arrangement: James Green.

James Green: harmoniflute, slide guitar, organ, percussion
Alasdair Roberts: piano, 'cello, vocal
Recorded in Glasgow and Sheffield.
Mixed by James Green at Meersbrook Manor, Sheffield.
Wipe Out Music/Domino Publishing Co
Originally released on 'Between the Late and the Early' CD produced for the 187th Royal Scottish Academy Annual Exhibition, 2013.

Alasdair Roberts & James Green: The Ugly Mountain

A song written and performed by my father Alan Thomas Roberts (1946-2001).

The Sang That Never Ends (Alan Thomas Roberts, 1999)

Frae the mists o’ time they came
The Picts their brochs, the Celts their kings
Romans came and failed to conquer
Turned home wi’ broken wings

Shouted loud by Bruce and Wallace
Frae Arbroath o’er land and sea
Lang forgotten, still it haunts me
The sang, the sang that never ends

Frae Columba’s isle they travelled
Wi’ the Word both near and far
Light o’ the world unto the nations
A sang o’ peace instead o’ war

The Hammer cam wi’ men aplenty
Mounted knights and a’ their show
Turned defeated by Scots united
Turned hame to rue the day

Shouted loud by Bruce and Wallace
Frae Arbroath o’er land and sea
Lang forgotten, still it haunts me
The sang, the sang that never ends

Jamie’s flooers destroyed and withered
Darien’s plagues and Scotland’s loss
Estates and lords and settlements and siller
Near put an end tae your song

Culloden, empty glens and servitude
Scattering the seed throughout the world
But pipes and drums and empire’s glories
The sang forgotten and unsung

Shouted loud by Bruce and Wallace
Frae Arbroath o’er land and sea
Lang forgotten, still it haunts me
The sang, the sang that never ends

Ships and steel, young deaths aplenty
Red Clyde, peace and noo Faslane
But century ends and memories are stirring
The sang, the sang is heard again

Shouted loud by Bruce and Wallace
Frae Arbroath o’er land and sea
Once forgotten, still it haunts me
The sang, the sang that never ends


The Sang That Never Ends

Neil McDermott and Alasdair Roberts play a rough version of Da Auld Restin Chair by Tom Anderson.

Neil McDermott and Alasdair Roberts: Da Auld Restin Chair (Tom Anderson)

For the Peel Session the group was:

Tom Crossley: drums, flute
Gareth Eggie: electric guitar, organ
Dave Elcock: bass guitar
Alasdair Roberts: acoustic guitar, voice, piano

Appendix Out: Cyclone's Vernal Retreat (Peel Session, 12th June 2001)

Appendix Out: I Went Hunting (Peel Session, 12th June 2001)

Appendix Out: Ice Age (Peel Session, 12th June 2001)

Words: Robin Robertson.  Music: Alasdair Roberts.  Demo of a song which appears on the Stone Tape Recordings LP/CD 'Hirta Songs'.

Demo: A Fall of Sleet (Hirta Songs)

Words: Robin Robertson.  Music: Alasdair Roberts.  Demo of the song 'The Drum Time' which appears on the Stone Tape Recordings CD/LP 'Hirta Songs.'

Demo: The Drum Time (Hirta Songs)

Outtake from a 2010 recording session for the soundtrack of Luke Fowler's 2012 film about R.D. Laing, 'All Divided Selves'.  Recorded by Jamie Savage at Chem 19 Studios, Blantyre, Glasgow and produced by Luke Fowler.  This is a guitar-based version of the song; a piano-based version of the same song featured in the film.

The Hidden Sin

Home recordings from 1994.  Recorded on a borrowed cassette four-track with two broken tracks at home in Kilmahog, The Trossachs, Scotland.

A Debris Orbit/Loosely Tuned Dot/Collapsed Quasar

1. Pretty Little Miss
2. Lansome Town
3. Handsome Molly

Alan Roberts and Cathy Roberts (née Houston) recorded in Glasgow some time in 1968.

Alan: autoharp, vocal
Cathy: guitar, vocal

Alan and Cathy Roberts BBC radio session 1968

Two Norwegian folk songs sung by Marthe Lea.

På Dei Høge Nutar

Lova Lova Line

Photo of Alasdair in Dunkeld by Clara Regueiro.  Scottish musician based in Glasgow - guitar, voice, songs and tunes old and new.

Alasdair Roberts

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