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Donald MacLean's Farewell to Oban by A. MacNeill
Dunrobin Castle and The Wise Maid traditional, arranged by the Tannahill Weavers
Iain's Jig traditional, variations by I. I. MacInnes
| Donald MacLean's Farewell to Oban is
said to have been written by Archie MacNeill to commemorate the
precipitate departure of his friend Donald from the Oban Games. It is
commonly believed that his exit was caused by a dispute over the placings
in a piping competition. This is, in fact, untrue. Donald MacLean was a
very small man who would compete regularly in the sport of greyhound
racing...as a jockey. It was over a dispute concerning the placings in his
particular race that year that he left the games.
Dunrobin Castle was the seat of the Duke of Sutherland,
a man who did for populating the north of Scotland at least as much as
mixamatosis did for the rabbit. The tune comes from a pipe collection of
music from the northeast of Scotland, William Gunn's Caledonian
Repository published in 1867. The Wise Maid is a pipe
adaptation of a fiddle tune to be found amongst the volumes of Kerr's
Merry Melodies, possibly written in honor of the woman who managed to
wangle a job as a snow plow driver in Trinidad. Not only that, but she
managed to fiddle some overtime as well. The jig was collected by our own
Iain, who added the variations.
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