I have not seen John Allen in years and years, but when I was a "wee girl", I spent a lot of time with him, and his music means a lot to me. He was very close with our family for a time, there, when I was young.

When Jon and I were in Toronto in August, we were *in* freaking Pickering, where apparently John Allen lived, but I didn't know he was there, so we didn't visit him. Damn, damn, damn. I thought he was in Cape Breton.

Interestingly enough, the song that was *supposed* to be played at my mother's funeral, "Mist-covered Mountains", but that her husband nixed because my father produced it, WILL be played at our wedding. And John Allan is the man who taught her how to sing it in Gaelic! I guess we'll have to add some of his music to the wedding, too!

***

Mist-covered Mountains

Chorus
O chi, chi mi na morbheanna
O chi, chi mi na corrbheanna
O chi, chi mi na coireachan
Chi mi na sgoran fo cheo.

Chi mi gun dail an t-aite 's an d'rugadh mi
Cuirear orm failt' 's a' chanain a thuigeas mi
Gheibh mi ann aoidh abus gradh 'n uair ruigeam
Nach reicinn air thunnaichean oir.

Chi mi ann coilltean, chi mi ann doireachan
Chi mi ann maghan bana is toraiche
Chi mi na feidh air lar nan coireachan
Falaicht' an trusgan de cheo.

Beanntaichean arda is aillidh leacainnean
Sluagh ann an comhnuidh is coire cleachdainnean
'S aotrom mo cheum a' leum g'am faicinn
Is fanaidh mi tacan le deoin.

[In english]

Chorus
Oh ro, soon shall I see them;
Oh he ro see them oh see them.
Oh ro soon shall I see them the
mist covered mountains of home.

There shall I visit the place of my birth
And they'll give me a welcome, the warmest on earth
All so loving and kind full of music and mirth,
In the sweet-sounding language of home.

There shall I gaze on the mountains again,
On the fields and the woods and the burns and the glens,
Away 'mong the corries beyond human ken
In the haunts of the deer I will roam

Hail to the mountains with summits of blue,
To the glens with their meadows of sunshine and dew.
To the women and men ever constant and true,
Ever ready to welcome one home.

MIDI file