However, even at this point in a lengthy career which included brief membership of Boys of The Lough, Five Hand Reel and Scottish folk supergroup Clan Alba, the musician says he is unaware of how his shows come across to his listeners.

"I just get up and do, then people say afterwards: 'You were pouring out energy'," he said, adding that he has no intention of analysing his working processes too deeply.

"The danger is that you start taking yourself too seriously and I've never been a great one for doing that," he added.

"I tend to have this reputation for being a bit serious and on a personality level nothing could be futher from the truth. The seriousness goes into the music — it's kind of therapy — but most of the time I'm pretty laid back. I never listen to myself except when I'm recording. When you stand up and play music, whatever enjoyment you are going to get is from playing itself and it's up to other people what they make of it. And what they make of it is really none of my business, because once it's out there, that's it. You do the best you can then let it go."

For Gaughan his socialist beliefs and concerns for social justice have always played a major role in his music, perhaps explaining his cameo in an Ian Rankin novel when a character's first response to hearing a Gaughan album is to comment: "Sounds angry".

Now 60, and enjoying playing more than he ever did, Gaughan says the political aspects of his music have become more pointed, if anything.

"It's not anger as people would normally interpret anger. It's more a complete revulsion at some of the trends within society that are largely politician and media driven," he said.

"It occurred to me years ago where a huge battle of ideas goes on all the time and most of it is on the opposite side of the fence from me.

"I have a responsibility to use whatever tools I have at my disposal to put an alternative point of view. I'm not out to evangelise or convert anybody. You will never find me out on the street corner saying how anybody should vote.

"I stand on a stage and say this is how it looks to me. If you agree with me, fine. If you don't agree with me, fine. I'm here to save my own sanity as much as anything, hammering the guitar and singing."

Dick Gaughan — putting forward an alternative view.

Gaughan, who appears at Bogbain Farm on Sunday, has also been billed as one of Scotland's greatest singer-songwriters, yet it is a label he resists.

"I'm a singer who writes songs occasionally," he explained. "I'm lazy and if somebody's already written a song, I'm not going to re-write it. It's one of the things that bothers me about so-called popular music, that there are five million songs all saying the same thing — my girlfriend/boyfriend's left me and I'm, so miserable I'm going to kill myself. I can't do that.

"I'm from the old school in that I'm not particularly interested in writing songs. I grew up singing traditional songs and my yardstick is the traditional songs I learned as a kid and that's a hard act to follow. A traditional song is a beautifully crafted piece of material and when you use that as a yardstick, you tend to end up with a pretty full waste basket.

"To me the big songs are our equivalent of Shakespeare because they have something eternal to say about people. And they are masterpieces of work."

There are other songwriters who can match up to that yardstick and Gaughan live and on disc has interpreted the words and music from Pete Seeger and Ewan McColl to Richard Thompson, his Clan Alba colleague Brian MacNeill and even the Rolling Stones, but if he has to pick a favourite, then Gaughan would probably plump for the national bard, Robert Burns and especially "Now Westlin Winds", a song rarely missing from his live sets.

"Songs can get too familiar and you have to rest them, but I very rarely have to do that with 'Westlin Winds'. I've been singing it 30 years and I'm still exploring it and finding new things in it," he said.

"Good songs should do that.

"Human beings don't remain static. We're changing all the time, our ideas change and that reflects in our understanding of songs. A few years ago I did a compilation album and when I listened back there were a few songs I thought: 'You didn't really understand that.' But I did understand it. I just understood it in a different light. To me that's the mark of a great song."

* Dick Gaughan appears at Bogbain Farm at 8pm on Sunday, which will also see the venue's second annual Food and Fun Fest.

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