Listening to Amy MacDonald's album recently, we were wondering if she would ever sing a number one song. Turns out she already has; tucked away at the end of the album, the hidden track once the formal programme has ended, is Amy's version of Caledonia
. It's just a short extract of a grand song.
Caledonia
was composed by folk singer-songwriter Dougie Maclean, and released as the title track to his 1983 album. Maclean would go on to find some greater fame as the guiding force behind the Tannahill Weavers, and some readers will know him from his contribution to the soundtrack of Last of the Mohicans.
The song achieved a new lease of life in early 1992, when it was re-recorded by Frankie Millar for a beer commercial. By chance, the single came out at the start of March, just in time for the Westminster election campaign. The song was adopted by the Scottish Nationalist Party for their campaign. It spent three weeks as the best-selling single in Scotland, but such was the concentration of sales that it could only make 42 on the national chart. Until physical sales became so slim as to make the list meaningless, no other Scottish best-seller failed to make the national top 40. Here's what you'll not have heard, unless you can tell John Collins from Tom Ferrie.
There have subsequently been covers by Dolores Keane (a weedy version from someone who is as Irish as Maclean and Miller are Scottish), by Celtic Woman (even wussier and less sipid, if that's possible), by Fish (bombastic, loud, strident, and so is his interpretation), by Jim Diamond (remember him?), by Paolo Nutini, and this quiet version by MacDonald.
