The Douglas Tragedy

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Comment by J Ruaidri Douglas yesterday

Hi Ronald, I'm glad you are enjoying the ballad.... It certainly has received a lot of views rather quickly!

I agree, there certainly is a lot of AI slop out there! We must be ever more diligent in spotting the spurious content it generates.  

Comment by William Douglas on Sunday

Continuing the theme:
"Slopping out" is the degrading prison practice of using a bucket as a toilet overnight in cells without sanitation, then manually emptying the waste into a sluice or drain in the morning. While officially banned in the UK in 1996, it still occurs in some older Victorian-era prisons due to infrastructure issues, causing hygiene and dignity problems for inmates, with waste sometimes thrown from windows in extreme cases

Comment by Ronald Drysdale on Sunday

The Douglas Tragedy

Hi Ruairdri, I agree with you about the real Ewan MacColl, and also your sentiments about Traditional renditions of this old sad tale.

The onset of Ai has produced a new word for our vocabulary - Slop (noun) and this means according to Merriam Webster:

"- digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence:

"An AI-enabled social media future also raises concerns around deterring AI slop-mass-produced, junky and superficial content that clogs up the web and social media accounts."
— Katelyn Chedraoui
"Slop can now be found anywhere, from unsettling images on Facebook of Jesus fused with prawns to poorly written Kindle books"…
— Tess Bennett

broadly : a product of little or no value : rubbish"

However, this is a really good love story and perhaps it would benefit from a more up to date version being put together by a real person, no matter how much you appreciate old traditional works, I would still find it hard to enjoy Ewan MacColl's version of the ballad on an repeat basis, e.g. while I'm eating my cornflakes or driving along the seafront on a sunny day.

When the Walter Scott version of the ballad was published in 1806 - the hoi polloi of that era promptly began producing their own 'slop' versions - as is noted in the publication 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border Volume 2', where a traditionalist noted:

"Many copies of this ballad are current among the vulgar, but chiefly in a state of great corruption; especially such as have been committed to the press in the shape of penny pamphlets. One of these is now before me, which, among many others, has the ridiculous error of "blue gilded horn,"
for "bugelet horn."

When I was producing the version that I published on Youtube, I had to make about 30 variations of the song before finding one that was suitable - some of it was very bad slop indeed! However I did also like one other track which I could loosely describe as a Rap, Rock ballad, with Techno-electronic and oriental influences (in a Scottish style?).

For anyone interested, you can listen to it on Suno here: https://suno.com/s/Uv9o5JtFQdeC2jz6

Best regards

Comment by J Ruaidri Douglas on Sunday

Thank you, Ronald, for the AI version.

However, I must say I prefer this traditional version with the very  real Ewan MacColl singing.

Comment by Ronald Drysdale on Saturday

A more modern rendition of this ballad about love and death (generated by AI I'm afraid, not real people)

https://youtu.be/E4REpTc9YnA

Best regards

Comment by J Ruaidri Douglas on November 14, 2025 at 18:46

William, Thank you, for the video link you posted from our friend, Mark Nicol. It is one of his best, in my humble opinion. He is an intetesting character!

Comment by William Douglas on November 14, 2025 at 12:07

Words and music:
https://www.douglashistory.co.uk/history/Histories/douglas_tragedy....

Comment by William Douglas on November 14, 2025 at 11:55

Here is the related story:
https://youtu.be/4T2QRkiHOfA?si=FoPzNFcolqfKAHQy