The Silencers - Wild Mountain Thyme

This video was made on a low budget and at very short notice and with no script, yet remains as possibly the most inspiring and enjoyable shoot I've ever directed.

We made it in 1996 I think - I'd only made a handful of videos then - and we shot it in and around Lochranza on the Isle of Arran.

There were just 5 of us on the crew, and the first time we met the band was when they arrived for the shoot, but with the help of the landlord of the Catacol Bay Hotel and some of the locals we managed to pull off something quite beautiful yet very simple.

The Silencers are a bunch of great musicians and lovely people, and they returned to Arran a couple of months later to play their warm up gig for their European tour at Whitingbay Village Hall. I went to the gig. And it was great.

Director - Steve Price
Photography - John Brown

Category:

Music

Tags:

• silencers
• Wild
• Mountain
• Thyme
• Wyld
• Wylde
• Tyme
• jimmy
• O'neil
• O'neill
• jinky
• jinkie
• gilmour
• jj
• steve
• price

[timeforthebigsleep]

Makes you proud to be Scottish!

[Vanfan8]

I keep coming "home" to this video and whenever I feel a bit down it provides an emotional lift to get me through the night.....keep it here, please.

[TaNkSaLoT100]

@andreasegde She is from my town Barnsley, England?

[JimmyJimmyJimmy24045]

This is my fav version of wild mountain thyme ... Also, the lead singer of the Silencers is the double of a guy that used to drive the buses!!

[andreasegde]

God, isn't she beautiful.

[gpadcarr1]

Simply grand video! The sofa on the truck was so effective. Beautiful backdrop for a beautiful song

[cru1ser2]

I first heard this in the mid-90's and it immediately hit me with its class. I play it over to reflect on those times. Great recording.

[TaNkSaLoT100]

@timeforthebigsleep & (part) Scot ! :D

[DonegalRaymie201]

@92balthazar

Please God no! I just think poor old Tannahill deserves a wee bit of credit is all. And anyway, he would have been a "guid proddy man" too, just like his lofty contemporary, Rab Burns or McPeake himself, for that matter! So no sectarian difference, and I'm no Rep' anyway.

If you were to describe this as a McPeake reworking/ arrangement/ adaptation of Tannahill, I'd be fine with that. But not that he "wrote" the song, which old Francie never claimed anyway!

[92balthazar]

@DonegalRaymie201 I agree. l never knew about the court case. It is ridiculous that the McPeake family tried to claim royalties, it is part of the folk tradition.

Honestly, when l saw your claim, l assumed it was rooted in sectarian bias that permeates anything even vaguely related to Northern Ireland.

[DonegalRaymie201]

@92balthazar

Yes, it is a folk song, so they should never have been trying to claim royalties in the 1st place, which may well have angered the Judge, especially when the defence produced an old edition of Tannahill's work!

And I'm not blaming old Francie McPeake, as I said, he claimed he learned it from his uncle, but his family's opportunism.

Weird thing is, Tannahill, being "lang deid", meant that the original was out of copywright, so it wouldn't have cost a bean to credit him!

[92balthazar]

@DonegalRaymie201 shocked by the plagiarism claim even by a judge. I know this sounds really repetitive and simplistic--but its a folk song! :)

As is my understanding, the poem itself was published posthumously in 1821. l know that there are Scottish folk arrangements, which were primitive but nevertheless influenced McPeake.

I don't believe that McPeake wanted to pass it off as his own at all, the Tannahill poem is well known in Scotland and

Ulster. His family's motives were self serving