The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond

About 1876, the Scottish poet and folklorist Andrew Lang wrote a poem based on the song titled "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond".[5][6] The title sometimes has the date "1746" appended[7][8]—the year of the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie's rebellion and the hanging of some of his captured supporters. Lang's poem begins

There's an ending o' the dance, and fair Morag's safe in France,
And the Clans they hae paid the lawing,

Morag—great one in Gaelic—referred to Bonnie Prince Charlie, who fled to France after his forces were defeated.[9] Lawing means reckoning in Scots. The poem continues:

And the wuddy has her ain, and we twa are left alane,
Free o' Carlisle gaol in the dawing.

Wuddy means hangman's rope, according to Lang's own notes on the poem; dawing is dawn.[10] The poem continues with the song's well-known chorus, then explains why the narrator and his true love will never meet again:

For my love's heart brake in twa, when she kenned the Cause's fa',
And she sleeps where there's never nane shall waken

The poem's narrator vows to take violent revenge on the English:

While there's heather on the hill shall my vengeance ne'er be still,
While a bush hides the glint o' a gun, lad;
Wi' the men o' Sergeant Môr shall I work to pay the score,
Till I wither on the wuddy in the sun, lad!

"Sergeant Môr" is John Du Cameron, a supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie who continued fighting as an outlaw until he was hanged in 1753.[10]

Ralph Vaughan Williams made an arrangement for baritone solo and unaccompanied male choir in 1921. It has been recorded several times, notably by the tenor Ian Partridge and the London Madrigal Singers for EMI in 1970.[13]

Scottish folk-rock band Runrig have made the song their unofficial anthem, closing their concerts with a rendition for over 25 years. Two verses of the song and the chorus are now a favourite anthem of the supporters of the Scotland rugby team and also of the Tartan Army, the supporters of the Scotland football team, and as such are fixtures including at the respective teams' home games at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh and Hampden Park in Glasgow. One re-recorded version in 2007 for BBC Children in Need that featured both Runrig and the Tartan Army peaked at number nine on the UK Singles Chart and number one in Scotland.[14][15] In April 2022, their recording was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for sales and streams exceeding 200,000 units.[16] Possibly taking a cue from Runrig, and sung at a faster marching pace, the original sad lament is enthusiastically bellowed out by thousands of Scots to celebrate a score and to spur on the team.[17]

Chinese singer-songwriter Li Jian used the melody[18] with Mandarin lyrics of a similar theme in his self-titled 2015 album.

The Jazz Discography, an online index of studio recordings, live recordings, and broadcast transcriptions of jazz – as of May 22, 2019 – lists 106 recordings of "Loch Lomond" and one recording of "Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond".

A notable big band version of "Loch Lomond", arranged by Claude Thornhill, was recorded in a live performance on January 16, 1938, by the Benny Goodman and His Orchestra on the album, The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert, on January 16, 1938, featuring Martha Tilton on vocals (Columbia SL 160).

Jazz singer Maxine Sullivan, for whom it was a career-defining hit, recorded it at least 14 times:

Her first on August 6, 1937, with Claude Thornhill (piano), Frankie Newton (trumpet), Buster Bailey (clarinet), Pete Brown (alto sax), Babe Russin (tenor sax), John Kirby (bass), and O'Neil Spencer (drums) (matrix 21472-1; Vocalion-OKeh 364); and

Her last, in a live performance at the Fujitsu-Concord Jazz Festival in Tokyo, on September 28, 1986, with the Scott Hamilton Quintet. It was her second to last recording.[19] She died 6 months later, on April 7, 1987.