ust a few words and a
melody. It must ha' business. The way I'll dress, the things I do, the
way I'll talk between verses--it's all one. A song, if folks are going
to like it, has to be thought out wi' the greatest care.

I keep a great scrapbook, and it gaes wi' me everywhere I go. In it I
put doon everything that occurs tae me that may help to make a new
song, or that will make an old one go better. I'll see a queer yin in
the street, maybe. He'll do something wi' his hands, or he'll stand in
a peculiar fashion that makes me laugh. Or it'll be something funny
aboot his claes.

It'll be in Scotland, maist often, of course, that I'll come upon
something of the sort, but it's no always there. I've picked up
business for my songs everywhere I've ever been. My scrap book is
almost full now--my second one, I mean. And I suppose that there must
be ideas buried in it that are better by far than any I've used, for I
must confess that I can't always read the notes I've jotted down. I
dash down a line or two, often, and they must seem to me to be
important at the time, or I'd no be doing it. But later, when I'm
browsing wi' the old scrapbook, blessed if I can make head or tail of
them! And when I can't no one else can; Mrs. Lauder has tried, often
enough, and laughed at me for a salt yin while she did it.

But often and often I've found a treasure that I'd forgotten a' aboot
in the old book. I mind once I saw this entry----

"Think about a song called the 'Last of the Sandies'."

I had to stop and think a minute, and then I remembered that I'd seen
the bill of a play, while I was walking aboot in London, that was
called "The Last of the Dandies." That suggested the title for a song,
and while I sat and remembered I began to think of a few words that
would fit the idea.

When I came to put them together to mak' a song I had the help of my
old Glasga friend, Rob Beaton, who's helped me wi' several o' my
songs. I often write a whole song myself; sometimes, though, I can't
seem to mak' it come richt, and then I'm glad of help frae Beaton or
some other clever body like him. I find I'm an uncertain quantity when
it comes to such work; whiles I'll be able to dash off the verses of a
song as fast as I can slip the words doon upon the paper. Whiles,
again, I'll seem able never to think of a rhyme at a', and I just have
to wait till the muse will visit me again.

There's no telling how the idea for a song will come. But I ken fine