Jeely Piece songwriter Adam McNaughtan dies aged 86

Folk singer Adam McNaughtan, who wrote the popular Jeely Piece song about Glasgow’s tower blocks, has died aged 86.

His most famous song – also known as Skyscraper Wean – reflected 1960s Glasgow when families were moved from traditional tenements to high-rise flats, and imagined a parent flinging a sandwich from the top of a tower block to a child below.

During a varied life McNaughtan worked as a teacher, as well as being a singer, a songwriter and a collector of folk songs – keeping traditional songs in living memory.

When he retired from teaching, he became a bookseller and was celebrated in a special show at this year’s Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow.

Among other songs written by McNaughtan were The Yellow on the Broom and the comical Oor Hamlet.

The folk musician Siobhan Wilson, who performed at the tribute concert earlier this year, told BBC Scotland News he had left a huge mark on the Scottish music scene.

She said: “He was a writer, a collector, a performer. Observation was one of his great skills – he really saw the people and the communities around him.

“The Jeely Piece song is a perfect example of him seeing the story of these people who had moved into the flats.

“He had seen a programme about housing on the television and that inspired the song, which has been picked up across the generations.

“These songs have been taken forward into the folk music of today.”

The Jeely Piece song was most famously performed by the late singer-songwriter Matt McGinn, who died in 1977, aged 49.