This is my own fingerstyle instrumental arrangement of this famous Irish ballad for acoustic guitar.

Danny Boy — the story behind the classic Irish song.

Danny Boy is one of the most famous and popular Irish songs of all time yet few of its fans know how it came to be written.  It’s a fascinating story which involved the melody having to cross the Atlantic from Ireland to America and then back again to England before the song was finished.

The lyric was written by an Englishman named Fred Weatherly, a lawyer who wrote songs in his spare time. He was very popular in his day and wrote about 1500 songs during his career including Roses from Picardy. In 1910, he wrote a song called Danny Boy which he had high hopes for but which unfortunately turned out to be a complete flop. Weatherly realised that although the lyrics were very good, the melody wasn’t strong enough. He looked everywhere to try to find another tune but nothing seemed suitable. Eventually, he gave up and concentrated on his other songs.

Meanwhile, his brother and his sister-in-law Margaret Weatherly emigrated from England to the United States and settled in Colorado. One day in 1913, Margaret came across a group of Irish immigrant workers entertaining themselves by playing music from their homeland. She was enchanted by it and asked what it was called. They replied that it was called the Londonderry Air and was an old harp tune from Northern Ireland. Margaret asked if they would play it again a few times so that she could write it down. She thought it might be of interest to her brother-in-law Fred as she knew he was always looking for good melodies to help with his song writing. Little did she know the impact it would have. As soon as Fred played the first few bars of Margaret’s transcript he knew he had something special on his hands. He also realised very quickly that the lyric he had written three years earlier called Danny Boy would fit the new tune perfectly. He hardly had to make any changes. Fred published the tune in 1913 and it caught on immediately.

The song was picked up by most of the major artists of the day including the famous Irish tenor, John McCormack. He was one of the first big name performers to record and it was an instant success.

Danny Boy has remained popular throughout the rest of the twentieth century and was recorded by several of the top performers of every generation including people like Bing Crosby, Judy Garland and Elvis Presley. This tune is one of the most recorded songs of all time yet without that chance meeting between Margaret Weatherly and those Irish workers in Colorado, it might never have come to people’s attention at all.

Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer’s gone, and all the flowers are dying
’tis you, ’tis you must go and I must bide.

But come you back when summer’s in the meadow
Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow
’tis I’ll be there in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.

And if you come, when all the flowers are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
You’ll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an “Ave” there for me.

And I shall hear, tho’ soft you tread above me
And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be
If you’ll not fail to tell me that you love me
I simply sleep in peace until you come to me.

“Scarborough Fair” is a traditional English ballad from Yorkshire. The melody is very typical of the middle English period. As a popular and widely distributed song, there are many versions of the lyrics.

The song relates the tale of a young man who instructs the listener to tell his former love to perform for him a series of impossible tasks, such as making him a shirt without a seam and then washing it in a dry well, adding that if she completes these tasks he will take her back. Often the song is sung as a duet, with the woman then giving her lover a series of equally impossible tasks, promising to give him his seamless shirt once he has finished.

As the versions of the ballad known under the title “Scarborough Fair” are usually limited to the exchange of these impossible tasks, many suggestions concerning the plot have been proposed, including the hypothesis that it is about the Great Plague of the late Middle Ages. The lyrics of “Scarborough Fair” appear to have something in common with an obscure Scottish ballad, The Elfin Knight (child ballad) which has been traced at least as far back as 1670 and may well be earlier. In this ballad, an elf threatens to abduct a young woman to be his lover unless she can perform an impossible task (“For thou must shape a sark to me / Without any cut or heme, quoth he”); she responds with a list of tasks that he must first perform (“I have an aiker of good ley-land / Which lyeth low by yon sea-strand”).

The melody is very typical of the middle English period.

As the song spread, it was adapted, modified, and rewritten to the point that dozens of versions existed by the end of the 18th century, although only a few are typically sung nowadays. The references to the traditional English fair, “Scarborough Fair” and the refrain “parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme” date to 19th century versions, and the refrain may have been borrowed from the ballad Riddles Wisely Expounded, (Child Ballad), which has a similar plot. A number of older versions refer to locations other than Scarborough Fair, including Wittingham Fair, Cape Ann, “twixt Berwik and Lyne”, etc. Many versions do not mention a place-name, and are often generically titled (“The Lovers’ Tasks”, “My Father Gave Me an Acre of Land”, etc.)

As a popular and widely distributed song, there are many versions of the lyrics. A version published in 1889 is typical of modern versions, aside from the place-name:

Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme; Remember me to one who lives there, For once she was a true lover of mine.

Tell her to make me a cambric shirt, Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme; Without a seam or needlework, Then she shall be a true lover of mine.

Tell her to wash it in yonder well, Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme; Where never spring water or rain ever fell, And she shall be a true lover of mine.

Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn, Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme; Which never bore blossom since Adam was born, Then she shall be a true lover of mine.

Now he has asked me questions three, Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme; I hope he’ll answer as many for me, Before he shall be a true lover of mine.

Tell him to buy me an acre of land, Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme; Between the salt water and the sea sand, Then he shall be a true lover of mine.

Tell him to plough it with a ram’s horn, Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme; And sow it all over with one pepper corn, And he shall be a true lover of mine.

Tell him to sheer’t with a sickle of leather, Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme; And bind it up with a peacock feather. And he shall be a true lover of mine.

Tell him to thrash it on yonder wall, Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme, And never let one corn of it fall, Then he shall be a true lover of mine.

When he has done and finished his work. Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme: Oh, tell him to come and he’ll have his shirt, And he shall be a true lover of mine