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The Seasons

Lizzie Higgins sang The Seasons in 1969 on her Topic album of Scots songs and ballads, Princess of the Thistle. Peter Hall noted:

Like many such ‘Calendar’ songs this is probably of literary origin, later taken into oral currency. If this is so the tune has certainly been freely adapted by the traditional singers who have had it in their keeping.

Stanley Robertson sang The Seasons on his 2009 Elphinstone Institute anthology of “family gems and jewels from the Traveller tradition”, The College Boy. He commented:

It’s just called The Seasons; other folk have added bits on till it, but this is the original bit. Jeannie used to sing it sometimes; I’ve heard Lizzie singing it. It wis just a song that wis sung amongst us, and nobody ever sung more than the two verses. The Travellers said it wis aboot a wee laddie and he’s thinkin on his childhood in the autumn. But that wis his last year as a child, because in the summer time he fell in love and he wis a man aifter that. I suppose it wis jist a wee wey on teachin ye the birds an the bees, just in a mair civilised fashion. It’s a beautiful melody, a lot of feeling in it. I usually use it as a workshop piece, to get folk into the feel of the Travelling wey on singing. Travelling folk were very much in tune with the elements and that’s where we learnt wir songs, stories, music. Ma mither used to say, “If ye listen to mither nature, she’s a living being. What does she say to ye? What does she tell ye?”

… and Thomas A. Kean noted:

A song of aging and fond recollections of childhood from Stanley’s cousin, Lizzie Higgins (see Princess of the Thistle); the distinctive tune adds to the effect. The words themselves are reminiscent of Joseph Horatio Chant’s September, the first stanza of which runs,

The hills are clad in purple and in gold,
The ripened maize is gathered in the shock,
The frost has kissed the nuts, their shells unfold,
And fallen leaves are floating on the lock.
(Gleams of Sunshine: Optimistic Poems (Toronto: Printed for the Author, 1915), pp. 107-10)

Fiona Ross sang The Seasons in 2017 on her Tradition Bearers album with Tony McManus, Clyde’s Water. She noted:

I first heard this sung by the wonderful Lizzie Higgins. She learned the song from a family friend who had come across it as a Scots poem and put a tune to it. Lizzie repeats a line, instead of which I sing a line that was written by Martyn Wyndham-Read (another of my favourite singers…!).

Quinie sang The Seasons on her 2025 album Forefowk, Mind Me. She noted:

Lizzie [Higgins] learned this song from a family friend who had come across it as a Scots poem and put a tune to it. I like its almost music hall feel and how it talks about place as a person or character.

Lyrics

Stanley Robetson sings The Seasons

The hills are clad in purple and the leaves are clad in gold
The autumn winds they are sighing for a beauty growing old
The grey grouse and the heather and the evenings where we play
I’m thinking on my childhood in a very special way.

That merry laughing summer in her mantle cloak o green
That merry laughing summer in her mantle cloak o green
But it was autumn, gentle autumn, when they leaves they start to fall
I’m thinking on my childhood and I love him best of all.

Fiona Ross sings The Seasons

The hills are clad in purple, and the trees are clad in gold
The autumn wind is sighin for a beauty growing old
The gray grouse in the heather and the wild deer in the glen
I’m dreamin of the sunshine, when I see the spring again

That merry laughing summer, in its mantle cloak of green
The trees and all the flowers, such a beauty tae be seen
But autumn, gentle autumn, wi its quiet eyes of gray
Enwrapt me in the twilight, and stole my hert away