The Proclaimers - Letter From America (Official Video)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ก.พ. 2009
- Official video of The Proclaimers performing Letter From America from the album This Is The Story.
Letter From America is available on 'The Very Best Of The Proclaimers'
Buy It Here: smarturl.it/tlihzq
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Official Website: www.proclaimers.co.uk/
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#TheProclaimers #LetterFromAmerica #ThisIstheStory - เพลง
As you get older you realise how great this song really is. Quality.
They were brilliant in harmonizing each other
Sean GJ O'Brien, aye... so true!
This song is almost as old as me lol
it is gorgeous and great from the release on !!!
aye yer no joking
As a North lanarkshire girl who saw my brother and dad both lose their jobs when the Ravenscraig was shut down … this song is very emotive and powerful .
Ravenscraig employed twice as many workers than needed. It’s hardly surprising it shut down. It was a fairly new facility when it had to be demolished. What a waste of tax payers money.
100%
Mon the shire
Wouldn’t have shut down Ravenscraig if they’d supported the Miners. But they didn’t. They drove past picket lines waving their pay packets at starving miners and laughed at them. Ask your dad about that. Tell we were asking for him. Ask him if he’s proud.
I would love to ask my dad lots of things but he died just after the Craig closed of an industrial related cancer . An ex miner himself we gave every extra penny we could to the miners when they were on strike . If you are from North Lanarkshire you have seen the devastation that the de-industrialisation of that area has wreaked . This was Thatcher and Thatcher alone .you are spiteful but also completely wrong .Divide and conquer ? Thatcher would have been proud of you .
Proof that The Proclaimers are far from "one hit wonders". This song is amazing!
It's the great arrangement that's the key to this song. The Proclaimers point of difference is their ability to sing with a full on Scottish accent rather than in an entirely benign, industry standard, US one. Song is OK as a piece of work.
Who said they were?
@@captainkenzie6873 on the Edinburgh news national survey. It literally says these guys are one hit wonders.
@@tomburke9955 I agree, most singers lose any accents when they sign, if you listen to this they sing in scottish. And its the orchestration that carries the backing instrumentation. Other than that they were a pair of lefty SNP supporters, in serious need of a good dentist.
Nah matey two hit wonders.
My great-great grandfather arrived in Nova Scotia in 1883 from Dunfermline Scotland. The family started with coal mining and have since done very well here in Canada. We've kept many Scottish traditions strong in the family for many generations. Nova Scotia identifies quite a bit with Scotland. This song makes me think of their story, since it would seem forward to write such distant relatives now. I repeated the scenario, albeit on a smaller scale, in my own lifetime moving on from Nova Scotia to Ontario for work,
doesnt nova scotia mean new scotland?🤔😅🤷♂️
@@beetojuice618 Aye. It does
lovely to hear it, my mum was born in England, west Sussex, her mum and auntie was from Hamilton and I was so lucky to have been able to visit these places since she departed , such a wonderful place especially the highlands
At 43 I'm just now appreciating this song. I'm originally from Texas but have been living in Manchester, England for the past 24 years. Last week me and my boyfriend did a motorbike trip around Scotland camping and enjoying the coast. I decided to put on The Proclaimers and this song came on at some point and I fell in love with it. Pure Quality. 🏴
Texas to Manchester, why ?
@@Caphiasas-sf6ct 😝
@@forgottenpalace4472 as you fleeing justice ?
@@forgottenpalace4472 since you've been here have you rid yourself of that america disease religion ?
@@Caphiasas-sf6ct Just enjoying the weather.
This made me cry. I am Irish and emigrated to Australia in the late 1960s as a child. I remember all the letters. Airmail. Waiting to get one from Ireland. Them waiting for ours. The awful sense of loss. Wonderful stuff.
You are always welcome back home
A letter from America has a deep meaning in the West of Ireland because they were accompanied by sums of money to help the home families survive in straitened economic conditions. Usually a family would pool their money and get the eldest child across the water to the US. This child was then expected to send back the passage moeny for the next child and so forth.
@@jgdooley2003 no its the highland clearances
As a welsh irish i respect that 😢
I am Irish we have a few good songs
Lovely Scottish accent. Lovely place and people. Scotland is the best. Greetings from Greece 🇬🇷
Greetings from Scotland!
Greetings from America 🙋
Greetings from Scotland 😃 wish we had your weather!
Its shite being scottish
My home village mentioned in song was brought up in Linwood Scotland thought no 1 knew it existed unless your were from there or paisley lol in my defense I was only 8 when it came out
My grandmother got a letter from America in 1916 from her father in Philadelphia. Wishing her a happy marriage and making clear they were unlikely to meet again. They didn’t. She didn’t get back to America until she was 46 and her youngest child of the seven she had was seven. I can’t imagine that pain and loss. That youngest child died just five months ago. He was my father. How lucky was I?
@@4legsgood well, it is possible
I'm Irish lived in Scotland for years and the Scots were shocked we knew this song 🤣 love it
The Commitments taught me the Irish love to belt this song lmao
now imagine people from Nepal knows this song as well :D
Hink it's mair tae dae wi the fact yous huv hunners ae yir ain great music that it's a pleasant surprise yees gie a leuk in tae wir ain sangs about the hings we thole fur bein Scots.
This is s fecking classic song they will be playing in 100 years from now. Immortality lads. Well done. 🏴
Im Mexican and I got goosebumps when I hear this piece of art, just sorry I didnt discovery it earlier. It's just perfect.
Still pulls at my heart all these years later.
“We should have held you
We should have told you
But you know our sense of timing
We always wait too long”
The emptiness of these words burns my soul.
Where's your WASPS uniform lol
Probably the most underrated song ever
We once played a wedding reception for a couple who were just about to emigrate to the US from the UK and wanted this as their last song of the night. I think they thought it was a jaunty little tune about moving to another country rather than a devasting assessment of the effects of the Highland Clearances and the North Americans who say "I'm Scottish" but know nothing of the home country.
Jesus. I would have been crippled with tears. How could the family make it through that.
This is why that brilliant Scottish band is one of the most loved musical acts in Ireland - The Proclaimers - Letter From America.... Oh boy can relate - We share the same heritage - We are Celtic soul brothers. When I was a kid in Ireland - We used to wait for those letters from America.
You know that 'Thousands Are Sailing' and 'Letter From America' were released within months of each other? Two brilliant and poignant songs about the same experience.
@@grantmcinnes1176 Amazingly "Two Margarines on the go" was also released at that time, another amazing song
Awesome, from our Scottish cousins, love from Ireland xxxx
Saw them live the other night, and these guys are the real fuckin deal!!!
They absolutely tore the fuckin roof off the place!!!!! And this song sounded FUCKIN AMAZING live!!! 🔥
Hands down the best live act I've ever seen!!!! Love them!!!!!
Seeing them sat 24 June at Queens Park x
Proper job ❤
As someone who emigrated to the USA from the UK, i freaking love this song. I loved it when i was a kid and i love it even more now.
A great song about the Highland Clearances and the (much later) collapse of modern industries. Easily their best song...
Totally agree.
It was directly inspired by news at the time of a skills drain among nurses working in Scotland, as many were leaving their home towns and NHS careers to take up offers of better pay and working conditions in the US and Canada. Obviously it ties in with the history of the clearances and certainly the final verse is direct political commentary aimed at the Thatcher era which had closed major manufacturing industries in towns like Methil, Linwood, Irvine etc. Some of those communities still haven't recovered to this day, rating high on the social deprivation index and lacking any outside investment.
It is a great song, but total bollocks connecting the reasons for the Highland Clearances with the deindustrialisation of Scotland.
It's good but it's no sunshine on leith is it ?
A drunk Andrew Strong singing this on a stage at an Irish wedding. Brilliant
real art and a history lesson, welcome to eternity
How original can a song be. Timeless.
Christ, this makes me yearn to return to Scotland !! And I'm Irish. Absolutely brilliant song.
mickigoe Me, too. And I’m American, and I’ve never been to Scotland.
brother
Same and I'm Scottish. But on a serious note....... no
@@Jamie-bv6mz Something wrong with Scotland?
@@Thaddeus2007 very much so with our drug problem. Worst in Europe in fact
I'm English and 25 but I've never heard such a special beautiful happy inspiring song for a working class person that's actually brought a tear in my eye I love the Scottish you beautiful people! ❤️
I appreciate your feeling, but for this 66yo person who grew up in Scotland, this song is just heartbreaking. It is beautiful, but there is nothing happy or inspiring about it. It is a song about emigration and loss that was mostly forced and not voluntary. It spans the 18th to the 20th century. There is an expression of hope in the rising melody of the "when you go" (not "if" you go), "will you write a letter". That means I realise you see no future here and I hope you have a better future elsewhere, but please don't forget to write to those who stayed. Families were torn apart and in those days, communication was only by letter.
But the main message is of loss, departure and desolation: " X no more" in the first few verses lists the names of places in the HIghlands from which people emigrated in the 18th and 19th century (sometimes not voluntarily, e.g. being evicted, burned out of their homes, with police brutality pushing people onto boats). In the later verses, it lists the names of places in Central Scotland where mining, shipbuilding and engineering were killed between the 1960s and the 1980s.
This is a lament, not a celebration.
Thank you. Whoever you are,you are clearly a working class person of principles. Guid luck tae yi.
Billy Bragg New England 👍🏻
I'm born in Essex but my name is Scottish - Iain - bloody father came down fro Glasgow in the 70's...
Romanticism is OK in songs but not a sensible basis for life
I’m originally from Egypt and I love Scotland so much. The proclaimers soundtracked my entire uni experience! Mon auld reekie
Love it, emotionally charged song that you can’t stay still too. Truly love our country, I’ve seen a few And Scotland is the most beautiful one I know and I’m proud to say it’s home, here in the highlands.
You are awesome. The way you talk about Scotland.
I'm not Scottish, so it's a surprise that this song is probably my favorite in their lineup. I just love the sound and tone it has, super smooth on the ears.
Ditto. Always reminds me of Christmas in my horrendous secondary school years. Christmas being happy times. School not so much.
A classic song from the Proclaimers. I love the way they pronounce words with their strong Scottish accents.
'Take a lew--k at the re-al trah-k..' Classic indeed.
The Scottish accent really makes this song. Just brilliant.
Always thought this was their best song. Thought 500 miles was massively overplayed while you rarely hear this one.
i love Im on my way..
i loved both songs
It’s their best song because it was produced by nobody less than Gerry Rafferty... His influence is obvious throughout.
My favorite proclaimers song is what makes you cry I could listen to that song 3 times a day and never gets old and sunshine on leith.
It's on Now 80s a lot. Letters from America
A song about immigration from Scotland to USA, and sad reminiscence of all those places never to be seen again...
Forced immigration I might add. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances
Forced by Scottish landlords who valued sheep and grouse over their peasants. Even the English didn't do this to their own. The Scottish gentry saw highlanders as bothersome folk who had over populated the land and brought little or nothing of value to it.
Consider how poignant that is when you remember back in the real old days, letter was the only means of communication - lucky if your letter even got there. No nipping back on the plane for Christmas, definitely no email or Skype. If you decided things were untenable in your homeland and chanced it on a ship to the Americas, it was bye forever, pretty much.
Correct! Kick out people to change them for sheep, and deer for the posh to go hunting on weekends. Sooo sad.
Working in a company mailroom today made me think of letter songs like Return to Sender and Please Mr Postman,but then I saw a letter addressed to someone in Bathgate who had moved away,and instantly thought about this song.
"We always wait too long..." I did not know what this song meant, as a kid when I heard it in the States. My family has held on to one thread... our Scottish thread here in America. I never knew... really... why we were taught to hold on. We just did.
Today in the states, there's a lot of civil "unrest" and hate... and hearing this song, as a Yank with Scottish roots... to think that someone might miss us, that someone across the Pond would take a second thought about us over here. That we could be missed really hits home with me. Here, we're nobody. It's quite a mess to unload that we might be thought of elsewhere.
Tears from across the Pond. Wondering.
I actually created a channel here JUST so I could like this comment. It's EXACTLY what I was thinking when I listened to this song. I've never heard the song before today, but I love it!
Aye, we miss a' oor ain folk. People have been forced for hundreds of years, sometimes physically, sometimes financially, to leave Scotland. I'm lucky. I still live here but, like millions of Scots, I never forget those forced to leave. You will always be welcomed home to bonnie Scotland.
This has me crying on the way to work x
God that's Soo sad.
@@jakeandcorirobertson735 you've really never heard this song..uck that's sad.
I'm a scotsman.. Brilliant song and fantastic twin talent produced by the genius gerry rafferty. What could be better? 😊
... virtually nothing could be better!
I remember my dad always playing this as we were driving to France for vacation every year.
After a couple of times, I just kind of started sleeping to this song. I guess that's where the nostalgia comes from when I listen to this.
Wow that is bittersweet! Fortunately most of us (who had family from the UK) are doing just fine but we haven't forgotten the Old Country 😀
Beautiful hommage to exile done in a great Scottish accent. A wonderful duo.
I call myself English while having Scottish ancestry. We should be fighting together, not opposed to each other.
One of the best songs ever written by human kind. Wow!
The saddest word in this song is "When". They don't say "If you go", but "When you go". That word breaks my heart.
Watching this in 2022 with them still being amazing i hope You can bring it back for us Gerry xxx
This is when they didn't have a lot of money. It is very excellent!
Janet Fairweather to how, are,you
I'd forgot just how good these guys are, sounds awesome, powerful
Beautiful song. I visited Scotland in 1971. Most of my family have never been there. The longing to go back to visit again is for me a healthy and motivating thing.
I cant BELIEVE this was 1987 I still love this song!! Its the Scots blood in my veins! SUPERB!
Lmao, Yank
This song comes with a health warning. It’s absolutely ❤️ heartbreaking ❤️🩹 Went to an abandoned village in the western highlands about ten years ago. It was chilling. The Clearances. And there’s a pub in Partick in Glasgow where am told the names of those responsible for the Clearances are written on the men’s urinals. I took their word for that. The heartache felt be so many.
The Lismore Bar,Glasgow. Has this sign in the men's toilets .
This urinal is dedicated to three men who participated in the Scottish Highland Clearances. These men took part in what is now recognised as a form of Central Government endorsed ethnic cleansing.
“Through their greed and bigotry, they and others have been instrumental in destroying a centuries old Scottish Highland way of life.
“Please feel free to pay them the respect they deserve.”
Got to give an award to the Glaswegians for the inventiveness levels of disrespect.
Certain songs from each decade, live long in ones memory.
Such great lyrics and perfect harmony, will mean this song will be played for years to come.
Great music never dies, it grows old like a fine claret, to be enjoyed however old it becomes.
Scotland, be very proud of this band. They are superb
Christ. I've just realised this song is a deeply upsetting ballad of what happens to some people who seek a better life elsewhere and end up homeless and strung out while telling their folks back home that everything is fine....
Well done for this, lads.
Ps, saw youse at nostock a few years back and you were amazing!
It also equates the highland clearances as the same as the closure of 80's industries. Quite an amazing political comment of the day.
no its not, difference between seeking a better life and being thrown off the land through political policies that leave you with no choice.
@@shonagraham2752 To be fair, very few people "seek a better life" in another country unless they're already rich enough that it's not a gamble for them (in which case, they're not so much seeking a better life, as a life with better ocean views), or because there's something deeply wrong (normally political) happening back home. But I take your point.
poignant, beautiful song. a real classic - no question about it.
This song is such a Masterpiece. The more I listen to this song and the Proclaimers, the more I like them! I love it! Amazing!
Back in the late 1980s when most of my generation left the very rural part of Ireland I grew up in. We adapted this song.... The chorus "Sutherland no more, Lewis no more..." etc became a litany of the places our friends emigrated from. Most of them stayed away. I formed a fierce affinity with Scotland back then... Saor Alba
Just come home from watching the proclaimers at hay festival, absolutely brilliant.
Discovered this song the other day and I was totally floored. Been on repeat since ❤️
My favourite proclaimers song. Obviously everyone likes the walk 500 miles but this is more of a gem for me. Used to listen as a little lad in Essex now listening in Canada
A helluva underrated double act. Stunning lyrics and wonderful gutteral Celtic voices.
The very best song by one of the most talented folk/pop acts ever. A huge emotional charge wrapped in a resolutely upbeat package; a true love song for a place and its people.
"Broke up from my work, the other day" the deivery and beauty of that lines is incredible.
Never heard this Proclaimers song...it's a touching lovely tune
Underrated song all round, the writing, the singing, the playing, this blows me away every time I listen to it, no one else sounds like the proclaimers..
Brilliant song from a brilliant band - they wrote great songs...
A beautiful song filled with such longing and pain. I can feel it in my chest.
Due to my Father's job the family had to move from Glasgow to England in 1962. I miss Scotland everyday. I think it must be a celtic thing.
amazing masterpiece this music makes you feel a certain way enough respect to the scottish people from Morocco 🇲🇦 ❤
I love this song so much it brings teers to my eyes, my family are irish/ scottish/ saxon/ french/ german/ genetics and im very proud of my ancestry.
GOD BLESS THE PROCLAIMERS, EXCELLENT BAND!!!!
This is their best song, imo :)
I think 500 miles is better :p
@@bimich7339Well, not necessarily better, but also great.
Agreed
Sunshine on Leith
Old comment allert
Absolute poetry
Tears in my eyes thinking of the agony of the millions who flew away, and those left behind...
I think this is way better than a Thousand Miles- superb depth and emotion, history to the song. The young kids playing outside the factory from generations past is very moving
Love this song, makes me happy to be Scottish
I love this song too, but it makes me sad to be Scottish
It does ey....
I am not Scottish but cheers mate. Great song and perfect English ;-)
always happy and PROUD to be SCOTTISH, don't have to make excuses.
Warm people.
The music in the way you say "Lochaber" just about makes me cry.
(Hello & thankyou from Canada, where you're loved & cherished!!!)
I live in lochaber 🏴
I picked up Proclaimers Greatest Hits in April 2023. What a treat. So many different styles of music. So many jewels. Thank you ❤️❤️
I'm Carl Smith 44 years old, will be 45 in June , I'm Welsh and this is 1 of my favourite songs sung by this Scottish Rock Duo!
First listened to this when I was a kid. 46 now. Tremendous 😊
My girlfriend and I have been talking about emigrating someday, more than likely to Toronto than anywhere else. Nothing quite like this song to change my mind.
As a Canadian I don't think Toronto would be my first pick in most circumstances.
This song is chaotic, meaningful, beautiful, catchy, upbeat but bittersweet, awesome. I love the proclaimers so much
I'm going on holiday to Dundee ! I'm from Belfast so I'm going for the food weather and culture ❤ tears
I haven’t thought about this song for a long time. It’s great.
...you need to think about it more often! Cos it's just brilliant!
I’m Scottish and never knew what the song was about until reading these comments makes it better especially being from lochaber 🏴
Lochaber, Sutherland, Lewis, Skye, Bathgate, Linwood, Methil, Irvine ... it's impossible to visit these places and not have this song start playing in your head
Recently moved to America and I listen to this song so much as it’s an migrant story sang with so much passion and emotion - it’s way easier staying in touch with your home country now but back in the day you were literally leaving everything behind which would have been so hard - great song and great band
This song was in my head all day. I’m not complaining
Two brothers, in harmony!! I love them!!!!! Video is so perfect!!! Real Scots!!!???
Despite my poor english, I've been able to hear the srong accent they have. I really like it. I like differsity in accents.
I'm Scottish myself, and love the fact that their accents are clearly defined when they sing, not always the case.
One of my favourite songs of theirs is _throw the 'r' away_ about their accent
these lads are islanders good folk have seen the monuments to the clearances very sad
A slightly touch of Scottish, I believe ;-)
They're Scottish, so they also speak poor English so don't worry about it.
Probably well over 40yrs ago I was in a pub in Perth on Hogmanay listening to a band singing. I said back then something like "If they're talking Scots in the intros why in Hades do they have to fake an American accent when they're singing? It sounds really daft." The Proclaimers prove the point, they would still sound good in "Anglo-American" but they're brilliant with their normal accents.
Underrated tune in different countries, but this is a Scottish hit song👍🏻🏴
Still get goosebumps when I hear the harmony kick in at the beginning
One of those songs you remember from when you were a kid and then you hear it as an adult and actually understand what is being said, and it hits you so hard.
While a lifelong Proclaimers fan it was The Commitments that brought me here.
Listening on repeat in 2019, such a great song
For the Scottish Diaspora who fled to America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I live in Australia, although I’m back in Scotland at the moment.
I am Scottish too
fled?
absolutely love this song
Security: Mate, why the alcohol?
Bro: *1000 yard stare*
Arguably the greatest song of all time
Good call!
The Proclaimers recently started a garden maintenance company. I rang them for a quote to come round and do my lawn, but they said they couldn't do it, No mower apparently.
Chris Southall That's so terrible, it's actually funny. Thanks for the laugh mate
Nice one Chris it can only get better ! !
nee bother marra
I'm in morpeth england
you want to get turds rid of .....am your man.... give me a costing
When I first heard this I thought at last Scots singers using their accents not trying to sound American, and I went and bought their album (yes album not CD) love it
Wow. Still brilliant all these years later. These guys are vastly underrated. Incredible vocalists.
This will always be such an underrated band
Loved these boys for years some amazing songs that only get better as time goes by. Sunshine on Leith is one of the best songs ever written.
The Hibs Cup Final is the best version ever, fabulous.
100 per cent agree.
i'm only just realizing how fantastic the proclaimers are
Great song. Got to see them in Edinburgh in 2012. The one positive thing I can say about the clearances is I exist because of them. My family were kicked out of Islay and ended up in New York. 5 generations later I am here. Mac.
Beautifully illustrated , proud to be a Scotsman. X
God Bless Brother.....I’m proud to be English......we should all respect each other......👍🇬🇧🤓
Letter from America: Dear mom and dad, We can walk anywhere in absolute anonymity unless we wear our glasses and starting singing "500 miles"!
Always remember hearing this whenever I would visit my family in Kilmarnock. Can't wait to return someday.
Made my Sunday a better day. Awesome listening from America.