Songs of home

Over lunch Sunday, discussing her researches into Midland (including a list of famous Midlanders including Fr. Tom Vaughn and Robert Jarvik), Kathy suddenly asked if it felt like things were slowing down as I was waiting to go. Thinking on it then I had to tentatively say yes; a few days later I'm rather less certain.

But that question brought to mind a song we learned in Gaelic class. Now there seems to be no end of Scottish songs about home (in both Scots and Gaelic) but there's one song rather a bit different from the rest: "Carlobhagh" (Carloway in the Hebrides, and I'm sorry but I'm not writing these in English orthography). For once the singer is actually going home and "Carlobhagh" is very well known for its refrain ending with "Aite mo ghaoil, tha mise dol ann." Literally this is "Place of my heart, I am going there [to you]," but much more emphatic.*

However, Kathy's question actually evoked a different line in this song of home, oddly not in the recording I have: "Greas ort 's cabhag, a' charaibhich na smuid" or "hurry up and hurry, you [slow] smoky train!" Such impatience seems almost un-Gaelic but there it is: the closer the singer gets the longer it seems to take, just as Kathy asked.

And no, that's not where I'm at. ("Patience: one of the seven deadly virtues," a friend once joked.) Sure, I am looking forward to going, seeing the old place, meeting old friends. But this is just a visit, after all.

* I note this article Does Language Influence Culture?. In Gaelic it does -- Gaelic expression can make accurate translation difficult. For simple examples: "I love you" is literally "there is love at me on you" (with varied emphasis), "I am sad" is "I am under my cares," "I am a piper" is "there is a piper in me."