"Kate Dalrymple" is a traditional

Music of Scotland

Scotland is internationally known for its traditional music, which has remained vibrant throughout the 20th century, when many traditional forms worldwide lost popularity to pop music...

 Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 reel

Reel (dance)

The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure ....

 in the key

Key (music)

In music theory, the term key is used in many different and sometimes contradictory ways. A common use is to speak of music as being "in" a specific key, such as in the key of C major or in the key of F-sharp. Sometimes the terms "major" or "minor" are appended, as in the key of A minor or in the...

 of A. The melody is based on an ancient folk-tune. There are accompanying words, written by William Watt, and the piece is something of a tongue-twister

Tongue-twister

A tongue-twister is a phrase that is designed to be difficult to articulate properly, and can be used as a type of spoken word game. Some tongue-twisters produce results which are humorous when they are mispronounced, while others simply rely on the confusion and mistakes of the speaker for their...

 to sing for those unfamiliar with the Scots language

Scots language

Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...

. It tells the tale of the eponymous spinster

Spinster

A spinster, or old maid, is an older, childless woman who has never been married.For a woman to be identified as a spinster, age is critical...

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The melody is something of a contradiction, as the National Portrait Gallery in London has a painting of the real Kate Dalrymple, a society beauty in her youth.

It is used by the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 as the theme music for the BBC Radio Scotland

BBC Radio Scotland

BBC Radio Scotland is BBC Scotland's national English-language radio network. It broadcasts a wide variety of programming, including news, sport, light entertainment, music, the arts, comedy, drama, history and lifestyle...

 dance music programme Take the Floor

Take the Floor (Scottish radio programme)

Take the Floor is the name of a radio programme airing on BBC Radio Scotland. It is the longest-running radio programme in Scotland, dating back to the 1930s when it was called Scottish Dance Music and broadcast by the Scottish Home Service. It features live sessions from top dance bands,...

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