**************************** JOHNNY BLUE * TFAS* CHOICES***

Lyrics

THE CLEARANCES (“OH DHIA TEINE”)
Written by Johnny Blue

We would cross lochs and rivers
But the Highland we tramped was our home
We were land-loving farmers
We had no thoughts to roam

Then the factors came and telt us
That our fate lay beyond the Great Sea
There was nae profit in us
We were ordered to leave.

So we sailed on the ships
With the wind in our cloots
Blowing us and the sails
Ever further from home
*
There were prayers on our lips
For the ones who would die
And the ones who’d survive
Each new dawn.

** (music only)

Now some blamed the English
And some blamed the failed 45
But our Chieftains sold the old ways
With gold glints in their eyes

“Oh dhia teine”
Was the cry as the bothies would burn
“Oh dhia teine”
From the women, the auld and the weans **
“Oh dhia teine”
As a Baile of 100 was reduced down to one
And the families were scattered like stanes

* (repeat x2)

If the pibroch should sound
The summons will go unanswered
Now only sheep on the ground
And only ghosts in the glen

“Oh dhia teine”
Was the cry as the bothies would burn
“Oh dhia teine”
From the women, the auld and the weans
“Oh dhia teine”
As a Baile of 100 was reduced down to one
And the families were scattered like stanes

Repeat * x2