The Pie - the Sutherland Brothers
Gavin and Iain Sutherland were two of the few successful musicians to hail from Peterhead, the most eastern town in Scotland. Their family moved south to Stoke on Trent pretty early, but for me, the Scottish North was never far from the surface of their music.
Stewart's biggest UK hit was "Sailing" which was written by the Sutherland Brothers. The brothers' original is much more earthy than Stewart's, redolent of highland cold and the hardness of life eked out amongst the bracken and the heather. But it's Tuesday and we've a long way to go to the end of the week, so I'm included a bit of Scottish sun, with this earlier offering from the pair, a love song, tender and fresh as a summer breeze blowing across the mountains. This is a very young man laying siege to an equally young woman, painfully honest in his entreaties, aware of his own shortcomings, but truthful enough to lay them out on the ground, endangering his own chances of success with every pleading word he utters. He sees that their love, like a highland flower, will not last, but he's hoping against hope, and so the song carries its own inherent tragedy in that he knows he will only be able to keep her for so long.......
".....it's my loneliness that's binding me to you.
ah, when I say I love you now it really means I love you don't you know? and if I give you something it's because you give me something that you don't know...........
....and when the pie is open there'll be many more to love you and you don't know hey, you don't know!"
Exquisite.