Part 21 (2/2)

The ideas come easily--aye! Do you mind a song I used to sing called ”I Love a La.s.sie?” I'm asked ower and again to sing it the noo, so I'm thinking perhaps ye'll ken the yin I mean. It's aye been one of the songs folk in my audiences have liked best. Weel, ane day I was just leaving a theatre when the man at the stage door handed me a letter--a letter frae Mrs. Lauder, I'll be saying.

”A lady's handwriting, Harry,” he said, jesting. ”I suppose you love the la.s.sies,”

”Oh, aye--ye micht say so,” I answered. ”At least--I'm fond o' all the la.s.sies, but I only love yin.”

And I went off thinking of the bonnie la.s.sie I'd loved sae well sae lang.

”I love ma la.s.sie,” I hummed to myself. And then I stopped in my tracks. If anyone was watching me they'd ha' thought I was daft, no doot!!

”I love a la.s.sie!” 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 t.i.tle-a t.i.tle 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.

It may be, you'll understand, that some of the songs I canna use are very good. Other singers have taken a song I have rejected and made a great success wi' it. But that means just nothing at a' tae me. I'm glad the song found it's place--that's all. I canna put a song on unless it suits me--unless I feel, when I'm reading it, that here's something I can do so my audience will like to hear me do it. I flatter myself that I ken weel enough what the folk like that come to hear me--and, in any case, I maun be the judge.

But, every sae oft, there'll be a batch of songs I've put aside to think aboot a wee bit more before I decide. And then I'll tell my wife, of a morning, that I'd like tae have her listen tae a few songs that seemed to me micht do.

”All richt,” she'll say. ”But hurry up I'm making scones the day.”

She's a great yin aboot the hoose, is Mrs. Lauder. We've to be awa'

travelling sae much that she says it rests her to work harder than a scullery maid whiles she's at hame. And it's certain I'd rather eat scones of her baking than any I've ever tasted.

I always sit sae that I can watch her whiles I'm reading. She never lets me get very far wi'oot some comment.

”No bad,” she'll murmur, whiles, and I'll gae on, for that means a muckle frae her. Then, maybe, instead o' that, she'll just listen, and I'll see she's no sure. If she mutters a little I'll gae on, too, for that still means she's making up her mind. But when she says, ”Stop yer ticklin'!” I always stop. For that means the same thing they meant in Rome when they turned their thumbs doon toward a gladiator. And her judgments aye been gude enow for me.

Sometimes I'll get long letters frae authors wha send me their songs-- but nearly always they're frae those that wad be flattered tae be called authors, puir bodies who've no proper notion of how to write or how to go aboot getting what they've written accepted when they've done it. I mind a man in Lancas.h.i.+re who sent me songs for years. The first was an awfu' thing--it had nae meaning at a' that I could see.

But his letter was a delight.

”Dear Harry,” he wrote. ”I've been sorry for a long time that so clever a man as you had such bad songs to sing. And so, though I'm busy most of the time, I've written one for you. I like you, so I'll only charge you a guinea for every time you sing it, and let you set your own music to it, too!”

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