The Bonnie Banks O’ Loch Lomond, or just the shortened name of “Loch Lomond” is a traditional Scottish Folksong dating from the early 18th century, a Jacobite adaptation of an earlier erotic love song titled “The Bonniest Lass In A’ The World”. The Jacobite version is the one we know today, the lover dying for his King and political cause and only able to return to his beloved sweetheart (and Scotland) by taking “the low road” home, meaning death by the hangman’s noose.
Over the years there have been many versions and recordings made, even by such eminent classical musicians such as Ralph Vaughan Williams and tenor Ian Partridge…but they essentially anglicised it and changed it from what it is at its core…a Scottish folksong, which in my opinion is better left to be sung in the Scots’ vernacular by a Scottish folk group such as The Corries…