[3][4][5] MacLean wrote the song in less than 10 minutes on a beach in Brittany, France,[6] feeling homesick for Scotland.
I played it to the guys when I got back to the youth hostel where we were staying and that was the final straw – we all went home the next day.
[12] Initially a minor hit for Dougie MacLean himself, the song's fame had a new boost in 1991 when a cover interpretation sung by Frankie Miller was used in a Tennent's Lager television advert.
[13] In 1998, it was covered by Belgium's Micha Marah as "Caledonia" and by Norway's Hanne Krogh under the title "Haugalandet" appearing in her album Vestavind.
Additional covers have been released by Tartan Terrors, Tina Mulrooney, Na Fianna, Julienne Taylor, Snakes in Exile and Jackson Greenhorn, the latter as part of his online demo The Scottish Connection.
In 2021, KT Tunstall recorded a version with Alan Cumming and American singer-songwriter Corbin Montenegro also covered the song on his EP Oceans on Fire.
[17] In 2022, Jacob Collier recorded a live version of the song in Glasgow during a performance, as part of his Djesse World Tour, and released the recording later that year as part of his Piano Ballads (Live From The Djesse World Tour 2022) album.
[citation needed] In July 2024, The King's Singers performed a Blake Morgan a capella arrangement of the song with Voces8 as an encore to their BBC Proms concert.
The original lyrics by Dougie MacLean, and featured on the album Craigie Dhu, include the line "I have kissed the ladies and left them crying".