Annotation:O why left I my hame?

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O WHY LEFT I MY HAME? AKA and see "Exile's Song (The)." Scottish, Air (2/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. The title comes from the lyric by Robert Gilfillan [1] (1798–1850), but the tune is one of the "Lowlands of Holland (2)" versions published in the Scots Musical Museum. Gilfillan was born in Dunfermline in 1789 and was apprenticed to a cooper for a time. He became a clerk and finally a collector of Poor's Rates in Leith, near Edinburgh, before he died at the age of 52. His songs were popular in their day and his 1831 volume "Original Songs" reached a 3rd edition. His song begins:

OH! why left I my hame?
Why did I cross the deep?
Oh! why left I the land
Where my forefathers sleep?
I sigh for Scotia’s shore,
5 And I gaze across the sea,
But I canna get a blink
O’ my ain countrie.


Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Graham (Songs of Scotland, vol. 1), 1848; pp. 12–13. Neil (The Scots Fiddle), 1991; No. 18, p. 24.

Recorded sources:



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