A Man Who Wears A Kilt Every Day #270

The first Friday of May is no pants day. Learn about the origins of this hilarious holiday, and if it was actually invented by a Scotsman in Glasgow in the early 1800s. I talk about a man who wears a kilt every day. You will also learn about some sustainable green bath products.

Listen to music by Marc Gunn, Vicki Swan and Johnny Dyer, Niamh Dunne, and Brobdingnagian Bards

This is Pub Songs & Stories #270.

0:25 - Brobdingnagian Bards “Seven Drunken Nights in Hobbiton” from I Will Not Sing Along

4:49 - WELCOME TO PUB SONGS & STORIES

This is the audio edition of my newsletter. I am Marc Gunn. I’m a rhythm and folk Celtic musician and podcaster living in Atlanta, Georgia.

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6:04 - WHAT’S NEW STORY

7:40 - UPCOMING SHOWS

• MAY 17: Coffee with The Celtfather on YouTube @ 10:30 AM Eastern
• JUN 3-10: Celtic Invasion Vacations, County Mayo, Ireland
• JUN 24: The Lost Druid Brewery, Avondale Estates, GA @ TBD
• JUL 22: Burnt Hickory Brewery, Kennesaw, GA @ 6:30 - 9:30 PM

8:50 - GUEST SONG: Vicki Swan & Jonny Dyer "1924"

Hear the story behind the song in show #603 Celtic Tides of the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast.

14:44 - STORY OF NO PANTS DAY

In 2000, the Knighthood of Buh, a student organization at the University of Texas at Austin, held their first annual No Pants Day celebration on the first Friday of May. Andrew and I were practicing daily on the South Mall of the university as the Brobdingnagian Bards. So we were there as a bunch of students ran through the school shouting and waving signs about the oppression of pants.

The event resonated with me because, well, we wore kilts at all of our shows. We were “pantless” too.

The event spread to other locations around the nation and eventually the world. But it took me four years before I wrote “A Man Who Wears A Kilt Every Day”, a parody of the traditional Scottish song “Jock Stuart”.

Instead of “a man you don’t meet every day”, my song was about a man who loved wearing kilts, like I did.

I didn’t stop there. Again, I felt like No Pants Day was a Scottish holiday. So I decided to create a backstory for my song. I wanted people to think that the origins of No Pants Day was actually a Scottish holiday called No Troosers Day.

I researched Scottish history and learned about the Proscription Act of 1746. This act banned the Scots from wearing “highland clothing”. The goal of course was to assimilate the Scots into Great Britain, just like the Disarming Act banned the Scottish from wearing weapons.

From that base, I wrote a fictional history of an uprising in Glasgow where the Scots removed their trousers and donned their kilts and rewrote “Jock Stuart” to celebrate their love of the kilt and their culture.

The best thing about this fictional history was that a few years later, a newspaper in Canada quoted the blog where I shared this fake history saying that this was ACTUALLY the origins of No Pants Day.

This should serve as a reminder to all of us. Check your sources!

I finally recor