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places to live but there was always money to buy drinks? That question always baffled me as a kid. Kids would be cold and hungry but somehow all the adults were drunk and fighting. Maybe that’s how they kept warm.

CHAPTER THREE
    Man, that’s ma hobby!
    D on’t get me wrong, not all my memories of Scotland are bad. Some are funny. For a start, I think it’s very funny that Scots like to sing. They sing anywhere, any time and as loud as they can. We don’t care who’s listening. Fuck ’em, we want to sing.
    I have vivid memories of people standing around drunk, singing about how much they missed Scotland. The best bit was that they hadn’t gone anywhere. They were still in Glasgow. Many a night I fell asleep to the sound of someone forgetting the words to ‘I Belong to Glasgow’ or ‘Bonnie Scotland’. Surely that must have been a sign that if they actually left, they were going to miss the place. But they left in droves and got drunk in new countries and forgot even more of the words and never once sang about wherever they were now. My folks never sang songs about Australia; they didn’t know any and didn’t want to know any.
    One song I remember, which everybody sang at the top of their voices, was a song called, ‘For We’re No Awa’ Tae Bide Awa’. It was sung every night in pubs and at people’s homes, normally towards the end of a party. The song seemed to beabout not going away from Scotland, and when you didn’t go away you should celebrate the fact that you’re staying by drinking as much as you could. This could only make sense in Scotland.

    For we’re no’ awa’ tae bide awa’
    For we’re no’ awa’ tae le’e ye
    For we’re no’ awa’ tae’ bide awa’
    Well aye come back an’ se ye .
    As I was walking doon the street one day
    I met wee Johnny Stobie
    Said he to me will ye take a dram
    Said I, ‘Man, that’s ma hobby!’

    Even as children we sang this song as loud as we could. It seemed all the songs had melodies that were written to tear at the heartstrings of a drunken Scotsman and break even the toughest man down to a crying, sobbing wreck. Or get him ready for battle. Whoever wrote them knew what happened to a man when he got drunk in Scotland and they exploited it as much as they could. As a songwriter I tip my hat to them; they nailed it.
    There were other songs too. Every night at the pub or at home when they got loosened up, they would all sing. Loosened up is Scottish for shitfaced, by the way.
    There weren’t many radios or record players at this time and no one pushed anybody into singing. It was as if they all knew when it was time. A strange silence would come over the room and people would stop what they were doing – drinking, punching someone, chatting up somebody else’s wife – and wait for the singer to start.
    Someone would look up from their drink and start singing a song like ‘Your Cheatin’ Heart’. It would be a beautiful moment, like a lone bagpiper standing on top of a castle wall. Only thiswould be a bloke with drink spilled down the front of his shirt, standing alone because no one wanted to be too close to him. He would raise his voice to the heavens, baring his broken heart and slightly battered liver to the world. But after one line everyone would join in and sing with him and fuck it all up. Then someone would yell out, ‘Hey, one singer, one song,’ and they would all be quiet again.
    This happened song after song. Everyone took a turn singing their own song. Sometimes they didn’t know the words and they just made sounds like the words. There would be a lot of mumbling and groaning as the singer, with tears in his eyes, desperately tried to remember the words to this song that meant so much to him.
    Then someone would yell out, ‘Aye, son. Tell us all what ye mean.’
    And the room