Down In Yetholm
There’s a place tucked into the borderland, a quiet fold of land where Scotland and England lean gently into one another. It’s called Yetholm. I went there as a boy, with my dad. Just the two of us. We were loading a horse that day and I remember us washing our hands side by side at a cold tap outside the stables. His face lit up. He looked so content, so full of joy in something simple and shared. I didn’t know it then, but it stayed with me. Decades later, it still does.
Yetholm has a kind of peaceful magic about it. Not the loud kind, the kind you feel more than see. It’s a place for locals and travellers. People walking the great routes between Scotland and England. People passing through, or staying just long enough to breathe a little slower.
It has deep roots too, Gypsy history, hospitality, a culture that knew, and still knows, how to welcome strangers without fuss. And that matters, I think. Places like this remind us who we are, and how we might treat each other if we let go of the noise.
'Yetholm' isn’t just a memory. It’s a feeling. A moment in time made permanent to me by father/son love, rural land, and something I can’t quite name. I wrote it for the people who’ve passed through, my Dad included, and for the ones who still carry the road in their bones.
Finn Moray
Song Lyrics
[Verse 1]
She wore red ribbons in her hair,
down by the green that the gypsies share.
We laughed where the river water runs,
and danced to the beat of an old tin drum.
Her granddad talked of kings and tents,
of the way they crowned them by the fence.
The Gypsy Palace stood so still,
with stories blowing through the hill.
[Chorus]
Down in Yetholm,
where the fires burn low.
Hearts are steady and the rivers flow.
Raise a glass to the tales we’ve known.
Down in Yetholm,
we all come home.
[Verse 2]
I walked the Pennine with holes in my shoes,
chasing the trail and chasing the truth.
I found a pub with a kindly smile,
and a lass who sang like the morning wild.
The loch was calm, the hills turned gold,
the sheep moved slow like time grown old.
I carved her name on a stone that day,
and left my fear on the old broad way.
[Chorus]
Down in Yetholm,
where the fires burn low.
Hearts are steady and the rivers flow.
Raise a glass to the tales we’ve known.
Down in Yetholm,
we all come home.
[Bridge]
They say the kings are gone,
but I saw one in the mirror,
with dirt on his hands,
and love growing clearer.
[Final Chorus]
Down in Yetholm,
where the stars still shine.
Where your story walks the border line.
Raise your voice, you’re not alone.
Down in Yetholm,
we all come home.
[Outro]
We all come home... down in Yetholm.