The Snowdrops of Dunblane

David Kilpatrick

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License $25

Free download

I wrote this song on March 14th 1996 and issued it anonymously. Five years after the event, I recorded it.

singer songwriter acoustic folk british guitarist song celtic traditional fingerstyle scottish scotland guitar kelso

David Kilpatrick

Solo singer-songwriter and tunesmith playing British fingerstyle steel and nylon string guitar, and historic instruments. Scots and Irish influences.

I've been writing and playing songs and tunes since teenage years in folk clubs and pubs. I co-organise the Kelso Friday night live music sessions at the Cross Keys (hosted singaround 7.45-10pm) and Cobbles Inn (10-12pm open mic with The Cobbles Band) with the help of many friends. All welcome! Visit us at kelsofolkandlive co uk. It is worth clicking on the tab because the sound quality of my tracks is far higher than the auto player on this page. Many can be streamed or downloaded at 320KBps and the enhancement for solo guitar/voice far exceeds the benefit you get for highly compressed band recordings. My recordings are full dynamic, not compressed. Just select Hi-Fi for the first song, and an MP3 high bitrate window will open - you will still get a sequence of songs. Most of my downloads are free, but some 320KBps tracks are paid-for. These are selected because they make up my main instrumental album. I now have a YouTube page and have started doing some video recordings for fun: @daviddkilpatrick I have mainly played Lowden guitars since 1999. I current play a 1985 S5FN (nylon string), 1986 S22 (jumbo O-size mahogany/cedar), and 1995 S32 (small body rosewood/spruce). I also play my own 1997-built Martin 'kit' Grand Auditorium rosewood/spruce, a Sigma OM-T, Furch Little Jane, Tacoma Papoose, Guild 8-string baritone, Vintage V880 parlour guitar and Gordon Giltrap signature model, a Troubadour mahogany/spruce classical and an Adam Black 12-string. And that's just the guitars... also viola, mandolin, mandola, waldzither, bouzouki, Appalachian dulcimer, low D whistle, keyboards.

Song Info

Genre

Acoustic • Acoustic Folk

Charts

Peak #12

Peak in subgenre #1

Author

David Kilpatrick

Rights

David Kilpatrick 2001

Uploaded

November 25, 2003

Track Files

MP3

MP3 3.3 MB • 128 kbps • 3:34

Story behind the song

Free of all fees or restrictions, may only be used commercially if proceeds are donated to funds connected with the incident at Dunblane Primary School which took place on March 13th 1996, in which 16 schoolchildren were killed by a gunman, Thomas Hamilton, who took his own life, and that of their teacher.

http://www.dunblaneribbons.scotland.net/

If you like this song, go to the link above and make a donation. I am afraid the link does not seem to be working now. I donated $25 after mp3.com payments for plays mounted up.

Lyrics

In March of nineteen ninety-six
Cauld winter held an icy grip;
The flowers of Spring lay sleeping yet
'Til warmth should come again.
And only snowdrops could be seen,
So small and white, so pure and clean,
Like little children playing in
The gardens of Dunblane.

Yet while the snowdrops lingered on
A man came with his finger on
The trigger of a murdering gun,
And plucked those flowers away.
You wives and fathers of Dunblane
Yours is no guilt, yours is no blame;
You could not have forseen what came,
Nor stalled the dawin' day.

Tom Hamilton, you won your fame;
For ever black shall be your name.
Black was the morning that you came,
And red the blood that ran.
Red, too, the hands which penned the laws
To give men guns with no good cause To deal Death teeth to deck his jaws
And tear us when he can.

From every creed and every race
Came flowers to lay beside that place;
No finer flowers did ever grace
The gardens of Dunblane.
And yet the snowdrop pure and small
Shall be their true memorial
The fairest flowers of them all
That in their rest are lain.

The snowdrops they will grow again
Each year as white as they were then,
As pure as ever will remain
The children of Dunblane.
The spring will come yet to Dunblane,
The March frost yield to April rain;
And flowers of spring will fill again
The gardens of Dunblane.