(sing to the chorus of “Ring of Fire”)
We celebrate
January 25th
We wear kilts
and eat haggis too.
“Because it's Burns, Burns Burns…
It's Robbie Burns…
It's Robbie Burns.”
The following is from Johnny Cash's daughter Roseanne Cash's weblog: http://thelist.tumblr.com/page/2
This is a street sign in the town of Strathmiglo, Fife, Scotland,
where my family on my dad’s side originated in the 11th century.
There are still a few things with the name of Cash scattered around
this part of Fife: Cash Mill, Cash Farm, Cash Easter and Cash Wester,
and this street, Cash Feus. It’s odd— and comforting— to know that my
ancestors lived here for hundreds of years, until one of them decided
to move to America in the 17th century. I don’t even know what they
passed on to me— perhaps a love of melancholy, Celtic- rooted music? A
love of rolling hills and crumbling stone walls?
Maybe even the red hair.
http://thelist.tumblr.com/page/2
The
first photo is a monument to the legendary Black Watch regiment, in
Aberfeldy, Scotland. My ancestry on my father’s side begins in
Scotland, as part of the Clan McDonald, not too far from Aberfeldy, in
what is lovingly called The Kingdom of Fife. I visited Aberfeldy in
February, 2009, for the first time. I had been to Fife and the
surrounding area many times, as well as Glasgow, Edinburgh and
Aberdeen, but never to this part of Perthshire. I filmed a couple of
episodes of “Transatlantic Sessions” at a beautiful estate, inside an
ancient barn, near Aberfeldy, in Fortingall.
The second photo is of the filming in the barn, with my friends and
great musicians Phil Cunningham, Aly Bain, Jerry Douglas and several
other superb musicians. I found out something very strange during the
filming. In the year 1692, there was a bloody massacre called the
Massacre of Glencoe, in which the men from the Campbell clan murdered
38 unarmed McDonalds in one horrible night. I found out that the very
estate where we were filming “Transatlantic Sessions” was where the
plan for the massacre hatched, and just over a little hill from the
place where 38 unarmed McDonalds were killed in this infamous raid, which is
still memorialized every year in Scotland.
I looked around the barn
where we were playing, which was in existence during the massacre, and
I walked the very grounds where the massacre was put in motion. I
thought about the fact that I, with my Clan McDonald ancestry, was
making music with men with Campbell ancestry, on a night over three
hundred years after those distant ancestors met in mortal combat, in
the very same spot. It was a transcendent moment, and a very potent
reminder that music is the great connector. No matter how profound our
differences, even those that are part of our DNA, even those
differences that somehow merit memorials and rituals and centuries of
bitterness, can be dissolved very quickly with an A minor chord, a
piano, a guitar and a violin. This knowledge, and the music, is
perhaps the most important thing I have received as a legacy.