Adapted Bawdy Lyrics: Outlander TV Series, Episode 114, “The Search”

Caution: This post contains old-time and foreign, though no less explicit, lyrics.

If you read my last post “Scotland’s Burns and Outlander rival Shakespeare’s bawdy” and wondered what the TV version lyrics of this naughty song were, I’ve added below what I could best discern from watching and listening. The earlier post includes a Scots terms glossary for both song versions. Also note that no details of Claire’s singing appear in the book; this content is unique to the show.

Here are Outlander Starz TV‘s adapted lyrics of traditional Scots bawdy song “The Reels o Bogie.” Arranged to the tune of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” featured in Season 1, Episode 114, “The Search,” and sung by actor Caitriona Balfe as Claire Fraser in drag, or as Murtagh puts it, “a Sassenach lady dressed as a laddie”:

Scene 1

[As stage fright hits her, Claire prefaces her performance with a 20th-century expletive, omitted here]

Verse 1:

Here’s to all you lads and lasses that go out this way.

Be sure to tip your coggie when you take her out to play.

The lads and lasses toy and kiss.

The lads never think what they do is amiss.

Because there’s Kent, and Keen, and there’s Aberdeen,

And there’s nane [none] as muckle as Strath-bogie-wogie.

Verse 2:

For every lad’ll wander just to have his lass,

And when they see a pintle rise, they’ll raise a glass,

And rowe about their wanton een.

They dance the reel as the troopers go over the lea.

Because there’s Kent, and Keen, and there’s Aberdeen,

And there’s nane as muckle as Strath-bogie-wogie.

A-root, a-toot, a-rooty a-doot….

Scene 2 (continuation)

[scatting]

He giggled, goggled me.

He was a banger.

He sought the prize between my thighs,

became a hanger.

[next is only a partially audible stanza as attention shifts to the crowd where Murtagh makes inquiries about Jamie Fraser]

[something] muckle chump [?]

I suppled both the ends…. [per 6^th stanza of the original song (see link from previous post for details)] [something, something] boogie

[refrain repeats:]

Because there’s Kent, and Keen, and there’s Aberdeen,

But there’s nane as muckle as the Strath-bogie-wogie.

[Claire signals instrumental accompaniment to halt for her a capella finale:]

No, there’s nane as muckle as the wanton toun of Strathbogie.

Credits: song by Don Raye and Hughie Prince (1941), brought to popular culture by the Andrews Sisters; lyrics based on “The Reels o Bogie” and adapted by the writers and producers at Outlander Starz and Sony Pictures Television.

For fascinating insights into the score created for what he calls Outlander’s “trilogy” of episodes concluding with “The Search,” visit series composer Bear McCreary’s Outlander site at the following page: http://www.bearmccreary.com/#blog/blog/outlander-lallybroch-the-watch-the-search/. He emphasizes the ever-present Scottish folk elements in these episodes of the series.

To learn the meaning of these adapted lyrics and to access and learn about the original—much naughtier—song lyrics, see my earlier post: “Scotland’s Burns and Outlander rival Shakespeare’s bawdy.”

To see and hear the adapted song and lyrics in action (totally worth it), catch re-runs of the episode “The Search,” showing this week on Starz, or stream it online. Mature audiences only.

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For more posts using Scots and/or Scottish Gaelic terms for body parts, or trippy poems about mammals and stones (and possibly some stoned mammals), try:

• The Paps of Jura
• Famous Poets’ Nature Poetry, 5: Of Mice, Men and Rabbie Burns
• Famous Poets’ Nature Poetry, 6: Hugh MacDiarmid in Scots

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• Scotland Ventured, Scotland Gained (all Scotland tourism- and culture-related posts from before and after the trip, plus plans for the future)
  

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