Page 79 - Allan MacLeod: Stories and Gaelic Songs

ISSUE : Issue 74

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1999/6/1

(sawmill), and he told them he'd run his mill on electric. So they said, "If you run her on electric, we'll run the line." Because that itself would take care of it. And then (the house) can get the power. And when the mill goes (eventually), well, they'll (still) have the power--they'11 have it forever then. Even when he moves the mill away. So that's what he did. So this old fellow was working with him • Neil MacLennan. And he composed a song for it, in Gaelic. interest in them then. Not as much as you should have had. (Why?) I don't know in the world. (Did other people than yourself have more of an interest, or less?) Well, the older people had more, see. But as kids you wouldn't have an interest in it. All you wanted to do was get outside, I guess, or whatever. But I could have learned a lot more than I did. Now, my brother Donald, he learned an awful lot of them, because he was interested in them. He learned all the older songs. Boy, he had an awful whack of them. Well, you wouldn't believe the song he made for him. About chasing the night owls away, and all this. Oh, it was wicked. This fel? low was wild at him, too. (Laughing.) And he worked with this fellow at the time. He picked all the things that happened all through it, and he put it all together and composed a song about it! (And then sur? prise you with it in public.) Yeah. That's it! Oh, he made a good one there. We used to get him to sing that one a lot. Once you heard it once then you'd just laugh at it. You'd get kind of wild first, though. {Laughter,) Because everything you did or anything that went on, would be in it, see. From the time they'd start • then all the stuff, the owls had to leave the woods, and the deer couldn't live there-- it was too bright with the electricity, out there in the woods. All this stuff. Boy, he was good at that. (Do you remember when you first started learning songs or was it just because you heard them all the time?) Just heard them all the time, just picked them up. I never really learned them, but just listened to the rest. Father singing them and whoev- er'd be around singing songs. You'd pick them up so easy then. But, see, you had no (Were there many people around here who made their own songs?) Quite a few. There was a half a dozen, anyway, that I knew of. (That's a lot from just a little....) Little area, yeah. And they made good songs. But it was not important to me (then), the songs. (Did they do them for deaths?) No. No, I don't think they ever did anything for that, no. (Birthdays?) I don't think. I don't know of any they did. It was more so just things you did.... Pretty well any? thing. You started to do anything, and if 'UNITED FARMERS CO-OP 'Co-operative LIMITED ~ Bird feeders, sunflower seed, wild bird seed ~ Pet supplies, i.e., collars, leads, pet taxi & much more ~ Pet food (Propet, Big Red, Technical, lams, Firstmate) ~ Garden & farm tools, hay, straw, shavings & much more ~ Good selection of work wear ~ Wheelbarrows, lawn mowers, rototillers, lime, fertilizer, grass seed, etc. VISA • MASTERCARD • INTERAC 8:30 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., Monday-Saturday 564-8134 • 502 Keltic Drive, Sydney, N.S. B1P 6H3 ' Located on Beautiful Sydney Harbour Specializing in Celtic Musk from... • Cape Breton • Atlantic Provinces • Canada • Ireland • British Isles /' DAYS IN N SYDNEY, NS Complimentary Continental Breakfast Free Local Calls Indoor Pool & Fitness Centre Newly Renovated Small Meeting Specialist 480 Kings Road 539-6750 TOLLFREE 1-800-0AYS INN mpact Disc pot on-line catalogue: www.connpactdiscdepot.com 386 Charlotte Street, Sydney, N.S. B1P 1E2 562-55CD • OUTSIDE SYDNEY: 1-888-562-45CD OVER 10,000 TITLES ON NEW AND USED CDs, Vinyl and Cassettes 79

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