Song 31:365, the final song of January, is the beautiful song Caledonia written by Dougie MacLean in 1977. He apparently wrote the song in less than 10 minutes on a beach in Brittany, France. He’d been busking with some Irish friends and was feeling homesick. He wrote the song and took it back to the youth hostel where they were staying. Having shared the song with his friends and realised the feeling of being homesick was mutual: by the next day they were heading home.

I think this is one of the best Scottish songs of modern times and whenever I’m away from home it’s one song which always makes me homesick. I may even have been known to line up versions of the song performed by different artists on Spotify…

My original 2010 version included my accordion, but I thought I’d rerecord this today, mainly because I wanted to play the song again. I’ll include both versions below – let me know which one you prefer!

Here’s Caledonia 2017 version:

And here’s the original 2010 recording with accordion: