TwinkleTrax Children's Songs

TwinkleTrax Nursery Rhymes Volume 1: A Sailor Went To Sea (subtitled 20 Favourite Nursery Rhymes and Kids Songs) was released back in September 2007, with a remixed version released in September 2008.

It is available as an MP3 download from:

The TwinkleTrax Website
iTunes
Amazon UK
Amazon US
CD Baby

A selection of videos were made for the album.

Lavender's Blue

Lavenders Blue originated as a bawdy song named Diddle Diddle, or The Kind Country Lovers, first published in a broadsheet between 1674 and 1679. It was later reworked as a children's lullaby, appearing in Songs For The Nursery, published by Tabart and Co. in 1805.

The TwinkleTrax version includes a new verse:

Call up your men, dilly, dilly

Send them to war

While you and I, dilly, dilly

Keep ourselves warm

This was deliberately intended to give the song a slightly darker edge, to appeal to any adults that might be listening. However, all little boys like to play at being soldiers.

Micheal Finnegan

Micheal Finnegan was real person - a bearded Irish soldier serving in the British Army during World War One. Not much more is known about him, except that his fellow soldiers made up a song about him, his wife Biddy, and his daughter Katherine. The song caught on after the war, and was published by the Oxford University Press in 1927 in The Oxford Song Book, Vol.2, collected and arranged by Thomas Wood.

The song is popular with children and can be made to go on for many verses, with many improvised unfortunate events happening to the unfortunate Mr Finnegan.

Our version tries to maintain a folky, Irish feel, and features a fiddle solo playing a traditional Irish tune.

Miss Polly Had A Dolly

Probably one of the most recent tracks in the TwinkleTrax repertoire, Miss Polly Had A Dolly seems to date only from around 1986. It's composer is not known.

I Love Little Pussy

I Love Little Pussy is typical Victorian fare. It was written by Jane Taylor, best known as the author of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and was first published in 1830 in The Child's Song Book.

Our version structures the original poem into a verse and chorus arrangement. There are, of course, modern connotations in the title that Taylor certainly would not have intended, and has led to the song falling out of favour in nurseries and kindergartens, with some even actively discouraging it. This pique of political correctness over a song about a child's love for her pet is blatantly ridiculous.

TwinkleTrax Nursery Rhymes Vol.1 - A Sailor Went To Sea

20 Favourite Nursery Rhymes and Kids Songs

This was the original TwinkleTrax album, first released in September 2007. It's origins go back much further than that, however. When TwinkleTrax owner Douglas Milne's children were small, in the early 2000's, he bought them various cassettes of children's music from UK shop, the Early Learning Center. These were, in Douglas' opinion, of very poor quality and he felt his kids deserved better. Douglas had dabbled in various musical projects since he was a teenager, and, recruiting his old friend, Edinburgh based actress and singer, Helen Raw, set about recording an album of children's music that children would love, and that would also appeal to their parents as well.

The album saw limited cassette release on Douglas' Little Bud label in 2001 in their native Scotland, but it was not until 2007, with the increasing popularity of MP3s, that the potential for worldwide distribution was realised. The album was re-recorded almost from scratch, keeping only the original vocals from the 2001 release, and was released worldwide via independent music distributor CD Baby.

The album's mix of traditional children's music and UK folk music and instrumentation has been met with acclaim, with the sometimes riotous arrangements appealing to both children and adults alike.

The full track listing is:

1) Tom, He Was A Piper's Son

2) Bobby Shafto

3) There Was An Old Woman Tossed Up In A Basket

4) Lavender's Blue

5) The House That Jack Built

6) Dance To Your Daddy

7) The Fox

8) A Sailor Went To Sea

9) Michael Finnegan

10) Miss Polly Had A Dolly

11) Three Little Monkeys

12) I Love Little Pussy

13) There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly

14) Little Miss Muffet

15) This Old Man

16) Old King Cole

17) The Riddle Song (I Gave My Love A Cherry)

18) Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

19) Aiken Drum

20) Golden Slumbers

Our album of "Scottish Children's Songs" was released in October 2010, and has gone on to become our biggest seller. It is available both as an MP3 download, or on CD, from:

A selection of videos were made for the album

Coulter's Candy (aka Ally Bally, Ally Bally Bee)

Coulter's Candy can be traced back as far as the 1870s, around the time it was used as an advertising jingle by sweet maker Robert Coltart. He would walk the streets of Galashiels, in the Scottish borders, singing the song to tempt children to buy his sweets. Coltart died on 23 April 1880, but his jingle has survived into the 21st century to become one of Scotland's most famous children's songs.

The recipe for the original Coltart's Candy has been lost to the mists of time, but boiled aniseed sweets bearing his name are still produced and sold in Galashiels.

Many versions of this song are downbeat and emphasise the images of hardship and poverty presented in the lyrics - crying babies, skinny underfed children, and adolescents being sent to sea to earn extra income for the family. We have tried to create a much more positive and happy rendition - there is not a child in the world who wouldn't be happy at being given money and told to go and buy sweets.

We were pleased as punch when a lady in Canada sent us a video of her daughter dancing to our version of Coulter's Candy in a dancing competition.

Three Craws

The origins of this comic song are unknown, although it is known to have been performed in Scottish music halls during the 19th century. A Craw, for the uninitiated, is Scots for Crow.

Our version of Three Craws actually has four crows in it: The first, which can't fly, a second, which is crying for it's mother, a third which falls and breaks it's jaw, and a fourth, which isn't there. There is also a final verse to this song, which is not in our version, which goes:

An that's a', absolutely a',

Absolutely a', absolutely a',

An that's a', absolutely a',

On a cauld and frosty mornin'.

Dream Angus

Dream Angus is a mythical Scottish figure similar to the American Sandman. His function is to send children off to sleep. But Angus has a comically violent dark side to him: legend has it that he sits by the child's bed, drinking from a bottle of whisky. If the child is still awake by the time the bottle is empty, then Angus will knock the child out with the empty bottle!

This beautiful ballad has been recorded by artists as diverse as The Corries and Annie Lennox. The TwinkleTrax version first appeared on our Lullabies album in 2009. This new mix keeps only the vocals and whistle from the original.

Amazing Grace

This popular hymn was written by poet and clergyman John Newton (1725-1807) to illustrate a sermon he gave on New Year's Day of 1773 in his parish of Olney, in Buckinghamshire, England. Newton's lyrics were set to an old Scottish folk song called "New Britain" by an American, William Walker (1809-1875), who published them in 1835 in "The Southern Harmony". It is this tune that is most commonly used for the song today.

The lyrics describe an event that changed Newton's life. Prior to becoming a clergyman, he had been a slave trader, with no interest in religion. One night, caught in a terrible storm and terrified for his life, he called out to God to save him. Amazed that he had survived only by the grace of God, he quit slave trading and began to study theology.

Despite its combined Scottish and English origins, the song's universal message of hope in the wake of tragedy has seen it adopted almost as a spiritual national anthem in the US, where many are surprised to learn that it is not an American song. It was returned to its Scottish roots by the 1972 instrumental pipe and drums recording by the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, which was in turn based on the 1970 recording by American folk singer Judy Collins.

The video was recorded over the course of an hour on the evening of 7th May 2013, at Blackness Castle, on the shores of the Firth of Forth, Scotland, and has been sped up to show the rolling of the clouds and the sunset in all its glory.

Loch Lomond

Loch Lomond is one of Scotland's best known folk songs. But like Dream Angus above, it has a dark side. The lyrics are about a Jacobite soldier, captured after the Battle of Culloden in 1746, taken by the Hanovarian forces to London, and sentenced to death. His spirit takes the path of the dead - the low road - back to Scotland, while his lover takes the highway - the High Road.

The video was shot on a beautiful day in the late summer of 2011 on Loch Lomond itself, just north of Glasgow and at the southern edge of the Scottish Highlands. Loch Lomond is the largest of Scotland's lochs, but no matter where you go, the northern skyline is dominated by Ben Lomond, the most southerly Munro (a Scottish mountain over 3000ft). We started in the picturesque conservation village of Luss, moved north to Tarbet, then down to Balloch at the south end of the loch for an evening cruise.

TwinkleTrax "Scottish Children's Songs"

20 Traditional Celtic Lullabies and Children's Songs

Arranged, recorded and produced in Livingston, Scotland, by Douglas Milne with additional vocals by acclaimed Edinburgh based actor and singer Helen Raw, this collection of Celtic Lullabies and Children's songs has received rave reviews from listeners. Andrea Guy of US magazine Mossip said it is:

...a dangerously infectious collection of fun songs for children and adults... Helen Raw's voice is stunning. Listening to her can easily wash away the stresses of the day... This is definitely a must have for parents with grade school aged children, or just people with a fondness for Scottish folk songs

The album runs for over an hour, and contains the following 20 tracks:

Aiken Drum
Coulter's Candy (aka Ally Bally, Ally Bally Bee)
Three Craws
Wee Willie Winkie
The Broon Coo
Cock-a-doodle Doo
Kate Dalrymple
Can Ye Sew Cushions
Green Grow The Rashes
The Skye Boat Song
Ye Cannae Shove Yer Granny Aff The Bus
Dream Angus
Oor Wee School
Hush Ye, My Bairnie
Katie Beardie
Amazing Grace
Silkie
Rest My Ain Bairnie
Loch Lomond
Baloo Baleerie