In 1786, Prince Charles Edward Stuart fought the Battle of Culloden to make good his claim to the throne of England and Scotland. His backers were called Jacobites. He failed in that attempt and had to flee the British armies multiple times until he finally ended up fleeing on a boat to the Island of Skye.
If this sounds familiar to fans of the television series Outlander, that’s because this is the same Bonnie Prince Charles and the same Battle of Culloden that Claire passed through the time portal back to the 20th century to avoid, and that she assumed her lover and husband Jamie Fraser had died in.
I’m a huge fan of Outlander the TV show (didn’t care for the books—too wordy), and one of my favorite parts is the hauntingly beautiful theme song, “The Skye Boat Song.” It seems like an authentic Scottish folk song, and for good reason. It is.
In the 1870’s, a woman named Anne Campbelle MacLeod traveled to the Island of Skye. While enroute, the rowers of her boat broke into a song called “The Cuckoo in the Grove” (“Cuachag nan Craobh” in Gaelic) which enchanted her. Later she tried to write down the song to the best of her ability to remember. She wanted to include it in a book she and her co-author Sir Harold Boulton were writing. The book was to include the Jacobite rising. Boulton took the melody and wrote new lyrics, making the song about Bonnie Prince Charles’ flight “over the sea to Skye.”
The song became popular in the late 19th century, published in a number of song collections. It was a Scottish standard for dance musicians and was often sung as a lullaby, resulting in generations to come remembering it from their childhood. Author Robert Lewis Stevenson thought the lyrics were not worthy of the song and its subject, so he massaged them to his liking.
Multiple singers covered the song over the years, incuding Tom Jones, Roger Whittaker, Rod Stewart, and Ella Roberts, whose version is breathtakingly beautiful.
When the premium channel Starz decided to adapt Diana Gabaldon’s romantic fantasy series Outlander as a television series, composer Bear McCreary of rebooted Battlestar Galactica and Walking Dead fame reworked the song to fit the story of the show, working off of Robert Lewis Stevenson’s lyrics. “The Skye Boat Song” was ideal for the theme song, evoking the atmosphere and times of the story as well as addressing a historical event tied to the story. It’s sung by Raya Yarbrough, whose voice fits just as perfectly for the song and the show.
I can’t get enough of this song. Whereas while bingeing TV shows, I usually skip over the theme song and opening credits because I get sick of them episode after episode, I never skip over Outlander‘s opening credits. I could listen to that song forever.
Which makes the extended version something I just have to share. Maybe after three videos of “The Skye Boat Song,” you’re sick of it and don’t want to listen to it a fourth time. But considering it’s one of the most enchanting songs ever written, how could you not?