E7 Well my heart's in The Highlands, gentle and fair Honeysuckle blooming in the wildwood air A E7 Bluebells blazing where the Aberdeen waters flow B7 Well my heart's in The Highlands A E7 I'm gonna go there when I feel good enough to go Windows were shaking all night in my dreams Everything was exactly the way that it seems Woke up this mornin' and I looked at the same old page Same old rat race, life in the same old cage I don't want nothin' from anyone, ain't that much to take Wouldn't know the difference between a real blonde and a fake Feel like a prisoner in a world of mystery I wish someone'd come and push back the clock for me Well my heart's in The Highlands wherever I roam That's where I'll be when I get called home The wind it whispers to the buckeyed trees in rhyme Well my heart's in The Highlands I can only get there one step at a time I'm listening to Neil Young, I gotta turn up the sound Someone's always yellin' "Turn it down" Feel like I'm driftin', driftin' from scene to scene I'm wonderin' what in the devil could it all possibly mean? Insanity is smashin' up against my soul You could say I was on anything but a roll If I had a conscience, well I just might blow my top What would I do with it anyway, maybe take it to the pawn shop My heart's in The Highlands at the break of dawn by the beautiful lake of the Black Swan Big white clouds like chariots that swing down low Well my heart's in The Highlands only place left to go I'm in Boston town in some restaurant I got no idea what I want or maybe I do but I'm just really not sure Waitress comes over, nobody in the place but me and her Well it must be a holiday, there's nobody around She studies me closely as I sit down She got a pretty face and long white shiny legs I said "Tell me what I want" She say "You probably want hard boiled eggs" I said "That's right, bring me some" She says "We ain't got any, you picked the wrong time to come" then she says "I know you're an artist, draw a picture of me" I said "I would if I could, but I don't do sketches from memory" Well she's there, she says "I'm right here in front of you or haven't you looked" I say "All right I know but I don't have my drawin' book" She gives me a napkin, she say "You can do it on that" I say "Yes I could but I don't know where my pencil is at" She pulls one out from behind her ear She says "Alright now go ahead draw me I'm stayin' right here" I make a few lines and I show it for her to see Well she takes the napkin and throws it back and says "That don't look a thing like me" I said "Oh kind miss, it most certainly does" She say "You must be joking", I said "I wish I was" She says "You don't read women authors do ya?" at least that's what I think I hear her say Well I say "How would you know, and what would it matter anyway" Well she says "Ya just don't seem like ya do", I said "You're way wrong" She says "Which ones have you read then?", I say "Read Erica Jong" She goes away for a minute, and I slide out, out of my chair I step outside back to the busy street, but nobody's goin' anywhere Well my heart's in The Highlands with the horses and hounds way up in the border country far from the towns with the twang of the arrow and the snap of the bow My heart's in The Highlands, can't see any other way to go Every day is the same thing, out the door feel further away than ever before Some things in life it just gets too late to learn Well I'm lost somewhere, I must have made a few bad turns I see people in the park, forgettin' their troubles and woes They're drinkin' and dancin', wearin' bright colored clothes All the young men with the young women lookin' so good Well I'd trade places with any of 'em, in a minute if I could I'm crossin' the street to get away from a mangy dog talkin' to myself in a monologue I think what I need might be a full length leather coat Somebody just asked me if I'm registered to vote The sun is beginnin' to shine on me But it's not like the sun that used to be The party's over and there's less and less to say I got new eyes, everything looks far away Well my heart's in The Highlands at the break of day over the hills and far away There's a way to get there, and I'll figure it out somehow Well I'm already there in my mind and that's good enough for now
*) From a post at r.m.d.:
Highlands source
OK, so the song Highlands contains the line ‘My heart’s in the
highlands. The source of this line (my apologies to all of you who know
this already) is a song by Robert Burns. The song was first published in
1790, and, like many of Burns’s songs, was his own expansion of lines
gathered from the folk tradition.
In the 1960s, as I recall, the song was somewhat scorned in Scotland.
(Andrew Muir can perhaps confirm this.) It was seen as one of Burns’s
polite, sentimental songs, written for an English audience (as witness its
English, not Scottish, vocabulary). In the 1960s, it was the kind of
thing which would have been sung by genteel, middle-class, pseudo-Scots
entertainers, rather than by the genuine singers of the Scottish folk
renaissance. (That is, to get really local, it’s a song more likely to
have been performed by Kenneth MacKellar than by Archie Fisher right,
Andy?)
Anyway, with these (serious) reservations, here are the lyrics:
My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe;
My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go. –
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North;
The birth-place of valour, the country of Worth:
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love. –
Farewell to the mountains high cover’d with snow;
Farewell to the Straths and green valleys below;
Farewell to the forest and wild-hanging woods;
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods. –
My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe;
My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go. –
Stephen Scobie