Arbroath musician produces nearly 900 songs using Robert Burns lyrics
Eddie Cairney has been releasing an album a week since July 2021 and will release the final album in March 2023
Last updated 25th Jan 2022
Musician Eddie Cairney has produced nearly 900 songs using the lyrics of Robert Burns.
The songs have been split into 89 albums of 10 songs each which Cairney has been releasing once a week since July 2021. The final album is scheduled to release in March 2023.
The Arbroath musician has tackled all of Burns works, expect for Tam O' Shanter. Cairney said: "I did attempt to do Tam O' Shanter but I very soon realised that, well, I don't think Tam O' Shanter really needs music. It's good on its own."
The task of creating all of the songs may seem like a daunting one but Cairney said it took him just a year on and off. He said: "To be honest with you, the rest of them were pretty easy. Just pretty straight forward.
"It took me on average maybe about 30 seconds to a minute to write each one. That was how quick it was."
The musician puts the ease of the task down to the poets talent, he said: "To be honest with the majority of Burns stuff it just fits like a glove and you don't have to do anything. He just wrote perfect lyrics, so that made it very easy. That's how I probably managed to do nearly 900."
He added: "I mean you occasionally come along and think, this doesn't work actually, and it's only because of the fact you're not reading it properly. He's done everything for you. There's a reason for Burns being as well liked and famous as he is. That's because of the fact he's a genius. It's as simple as that."
The project started over 10 years ago and the musician feels like his project has been a public service. He said: "There were just so many of his songs that actually never had any music at all. Then there were other songs that maybe two or three songs shared one melody and they kind of fitted. Sort of.
"So, I feel like I've done a public service to bring his music up to date."
He added: "In 2009 I started putting some music to his lyrics just for something to do and it just carried on. It was almost like a Forest Gump moment. I just kept on going and before I knew it I had nearly 900 songs."
While Cairney himself has sung all of the songs produced, he hopes more people can take on and sing his modernised Burns songs. He said: "There's people put there that could actually sing them properly and I would love to hear them sung properly.
"That's what I would really like. That would really make me quite happy if people would start just taking them on board and there has got to be a song for everybody because there are a lot of songs."