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Celebrate Burns Night With the Cold Spring Pipes and Drums
As the festive season draws to a close and the winter blues set in, Scots around the world take solace knowing that Burns Night is approaching. In late January, people with a love of things Scottish remember the great poet and songwriter Robert Burns, affectionately known as "Rabbie," and celebrate his life and works in an evening of merriment. The Cold Spring Fire Company Pipe Band will continue the tradition by hosting a Burns Night at the Highlands Country Club on January 27.
Burns was born into a peasant family in Ayrshire, Scotland in 1759. He spent his childhood years working on the struggling family farm. But despite his unprivileged circumstances, he was fortunate to receive a good education and was a gifted scholar who read constantly. He wrote his first song at age 15 - a love song to his first sweetheart Nelly Blair - and published it later as "Handsome Nell."
Burns published his first volume of poems, "Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect," at age 27. He planned to use the proceeds from the book to buy passage for himself and his love Jean Armour to emigrate to Jamaica, they having been ostracized by the local community for conceiving out of wedlock (Jean's father also opposed his daughter marrying a man with a reputation for drunkenness and womanizing). But the volume was received with such acclaim, called by some "one of the greatest poetical collections ever written," that Burns' plans changed. He and Jean married and moved to Edinburgh.
His celebrity status and dashing good looks made him a much sought after member of literary society - he was a flamboyant character and quite a ladies' man. Indeed, many of his songs and poems are tributes to the women he admired.
Despite his rise to fame, Burns remained quite poor. He never forgot his humble beginnings, and his songs and poems frequently reflected his roots and the highly polarized society in which he lived. "A Man's a man for a' that" provocatively pokes fun at the ruling classes and asserts that his people are as good as any of them, while "The Cotter's Saturday Night" provides a vivid description of peasant life in Scotland. Although some of his works were written in plain English, his most celebrated verses were penned in the Scottish dialect of the time. Undoubtedly the most famous verse attributed to Burns is "Auld Lang Syne," although it appears that it was not a Burns original, but rather that he "restored" the piece from fragments of an old ballad.
Burns ultimately returned to the west coast of Scotland and spent the last few years of his life farming and then working in the Dumfries customs office, though he continued to write. He died prematurely at the age of 37 in failing health, his doctor's advice to bathe daily in the chilly Solway Firth only having accelerated the decline, leaving behind 13 children and legacy of songs, poems, and letters that have inspired a passion and spirit of independence among Scots and others worldwide.
In memory of Robert Burns, the Cold Spring Fire Company Pipes and Drums is pleased to present a Traditional Scottish Burns Night, to be held at the Highlands Country Club in Garrison on January 27, from 7-11pm. The evening will include a full Scottish-inspired dinner, open beer and wine bar, whisky toasts, traditional music from local musicians Scott Mettey, Seth Gallagher and others, songs, poetry, and a special performance by the Cold Spring Pipes and Drums.
Tickets are $100 per person, with proceeds to benefit the pipe band. More information is available on the band web site at www.cspipeband.org/burns. To purchase tickets, make checks payable to "Cold Spring Fire Co." and write "Pipe band" in the memo, and send to Ann Dillon, 7 Short Street, Cold Spring, NY 10516. Please note that your check must reach them no later than January 16. If your business would like to help sponsor the event, advertising space is available in the Burns Night program - see the web site, www.cspipeband.org/ burns or call 265-2341 for details.
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