“I love a lassie!” I hummed.  And then I thocht:  “Noo—­there’s a bonny idea for a bit sang!”

That time the melody came to me frae the first.  It was wi’ the words I had the trouble.  I couldna do anything wi’ them at a’ at first.  So I put the bit I’d written awa’.  But whiles later I remembered it again, and I took the idea to my gude friend Gerald Grafton.  We worked a long time before we hit upon just the verses that seemed richt.  But when we’d done we had a song that I sang for many years, and that my audiences still demand from me.

That’s aye been one great test of a song for me.  Whiles I’ll be a wee bit dootful aboot a song-in my repertory for a season.  Then I’ll stop singing it for a few nichts.  If the audiences ask for it after that I know that I should restore it to its place, and I do.

I do not write all my own songs, but I have a great deal to do with the making of all of them.  It’s not once in a blue moon that I get a song that I can sing exactly as it was first written.  That doesna mean it’s no a good song it may mean that I’m no just the man tae sing it the way the author intended.  I’ve my ain ways of acting and singing, and unless I feel richt and hamely wi’ a song I canna do it justice.  Sae it’s no reflection on an author if I want to change his song about.

I keep in touch with several song writers—­Grafton, J. D. Harper and several others.  So well do they understand the way I like to do that they usually send me their first rough sketch of a song—­the song the way it’s born in their minds, before they put it into shape at all.  They just give an outline of the words, and that gives me a notion of the story I’ll have to be acting out to sing the song.

If I just sang songs, you see, it would be easy enough.  But the song’s only a part of it.  There must aye be a story to be told, and a character to be portrayed, and studied, and interpreted.  I always accept a song that appeals to me, even though I may not think I can use it for a long time to come.  Good ideas for songs are the scarcest things in the world, I’ve found, and I never let one that may possibly suit me get away from me.

Often and often there’ll be nae mair than just the bare idea left after we get through rebuilding and writing a new song.  It may be just a title-a title counts for a great deal in a song with me.

I get a tremendous lot of songs frae ane year’s end tae the other.  All sorts of folk that ha’ heard me send me their compositions, and though not one in fifty could possibly suit me I go through them a’.  It doesna tak’ much time; I can tell by a single glance at the verses, as a rule, if it’s worth my while tae go on and finish reading.  At the same time it has happened just often enough that a good song has come to me so, frae an author that’s never been heard of before, that I wullna tak’ the chance of missing one.