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Heather And Honey

from Dark Harvest by Malcolm MacWatt

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about

When young people cannot afford to settle where their ancestors lived for generations, it’s a subtle form of Highland Clearances. The Highlands may be beautiful and dramatic but they also need to offer local people sustainable jobs and an economic future. I’m very cynical about any schemes allowing rich investors to claim green credentials as ultimately they are more about making money than a real desire to benefit nature or the planet. Scotland needs to take a serious look at land reform for the benefit of all, not just the wealthy few.

lyrics

It’s hard when the soil is not willing to give up its yield
I would dream of a garden with statues and flowers instead of this field
But who’s got the time or the money for flowers and wild honey bees?
It’s the harrow we have on this hard highland ground and heather to clear

I once met a girl at a fair, at a stall raising funds for the kirk
Her father owns all the estate and the land that my family once worked
She offered me something to try in the hope that maybe I’d buy
An oatcake with butter and honey so sweet that I bitterly sighed

Ch: She looks at heather and sees purple flowers and bees
Grouse on the wing and the guns when the summer is high
I look at heather and see burning and smoke on the breeze
I see a rich land while scraping a living and that doesn’t seem right to me

I can hear talk of rewilding, another tax break dressed in green
When most of the highlands and islands are privately owned so it seems
I can see thousands of acres for pheasant and grouse and the deer
All there for the killing, too few make good livings round here

I fear the highlands becoming parks for a new monied clan
As people head south to the big towns and cities for jobs and a better chance
And who could blame them for leaving but clearances come at a cost
And they’ll open a jar of wild heather honey and taste of a life they have lost

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from Dark Harvest, released January 25, 2024

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Malcolm MacWatt London, UK

“MacWatt will doubtless be considered among the best of the new breed of folksingers and songwriters, who speak of the past as a way to perhaps understand it and move forward” Stephen Rapid, Lonesome Highway

“He shines as a singer and he shines as an interpreter of the eternal folk songbook,” Tom Brosseau, The Great American Folk Show, North Dakota ... more

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