Ye Jacobites by name
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Summary
Recorded by Ian Bruce on his 2002 album The King Has Landed, "Ye Jacobites by Name" (Roud # 5517), is a traditional Scottish folk song which goes back to the Jacobite risings in Scotland (1688–1746). While the original version simply attacked the Jacobites from a contemporaneous Whig point of view, Robert Burns rewrote it in around 1791 to give a version with a more general, humanist anti-war, but nonetheless anti-Jacobite outlook. This is the version that most people know today
Lyrics
Ye Jacobites by name lend an ear, lend an ear
Ye Jacobites by name lend an ear
Ye Jacobites by name your faults I will proclaim
And your doctrines I must blame, and you shall hear, you shall hear
Your doctrines I must blame, you shall hear
What's right and what is wrong by the law, by the law
What's right and what is wrong by the law
What's right and what is wrong, a short sword and a long
A weak arm and a strong for to draw, for to draw
A weak arm and a strong for to draw
What makes heroic strife famed afar, famed afar?
What makes heroic strife famed afar?
What makes heroic strife, to whet the assassin's knife
Or hunt a parent's life with bloody war, bloody war
Or hunt a parent's life with bloody war
Then let your schemes alone in the state, in the state
I'll leave your schemes alone in the state
Then leave your schemes alone, adore the rising sun
And leave a man alone to his fate, to his fate
I'll leave a man alone to his fate
Ye Jacobites by name lend an ear, lend an ear
Ye Jacobites by name lend an ear
Ye Jacobites by name your faults I will proclaim
And your doctrines I must blame, and you shall hear, you shall hear
Your doctrines I must blame, you shall hear
