May 22, 2026: Melville Castle is posted in Book 2.
Back when I lived in a condo, we had a table outside the door into the garage and people in the building would leave stuff they wanted to give away on the table. It was the source of endless new junk coming into my life. One of the treasures I found was a CD with Scottish music on it. In those days I had a CD player in my Mini Cooper and I listened to the album just once before I realized it was a terrible collection with the exception of one song. This song. The dude who sang Melville Castle had a magical voice and I've searched on YouTube to try and figure out who he was, but despite there being several million versions there, nothing sounds right. This version comes pretty close. Since then, I've lost the CD, sold the car with my last CD player in it, and moved out of the condo, and now you and I are stuck with this song. Here's the deal, despite it being pretty dumb, and quite obviously written by a deranged man, and having no meaningful background on where the song originated, I will be honest and tell you I just adore playing this. It's an ear worm and super easy and fun it's also pretty cool to know Melville Castle is a real place and you can spend the night there if you'd like. You can get married there if you want. And gents, maybe all the ladies there will be dashed if you ever leave the place, just as they are with Willy.
Oh, and the original lyrics are full of Scottish weirdnesses, so I just put normal boring English lyrics in hoping your audience will understand what the heck you're talking about. If your Scottish accent is on point, go get the original lyrics.
This should present no meaningful playing challenge for you. It might be fun just to sing and strum it honestly. There is a G7 (D7 on baritone) up the neck showing up in Measure 2 and two other places. That 0575 shape is going to keep showing up, so learn it now. Also, listen to the MP3 a few times so you can get the 16th notes right. You're supposed to repeat the first lyrics after all subsequent verses so it takes seven times to go through it which is way too many. I'd probably do the four verses and then tack the first set onto the end cutting it down to five times around.
Make a video on your phone of you playing this song and email it to me. I'd love to see you turn this into something wonderful.
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