Wild Mountain Thyme

[sodascouts]

Happy St. Patrick's Day! To celebrate, I put up a clip of Glenn doing Wild Mountain Thyme from Dublin here. Enjoy!


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[Freypower]

Ah, the tension in that performance. Will he get through it? The audience just carry him along. It's so moving, so Celtic, so (sniff)....


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There's talk on the street, it sounds so familiar
Great expectations, everybody's watching you

[sodascouts]

I love how they all sing with him. It's great!


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[Freypower]

I have been listening to my four disc box set of the Byrds, which includes their version of Wild Mountain Thyme but also their remakes of such folk classics as The Bells Of Rhymney and John Riley. I would love it if Glenn tried his hand at singing a few songs like this, as WMT was so successful. He has never sung a Bob Dylan song for instance, and I am sure he could do it. I know his preference is for black music but I think it would be interesting for him to try songs like this.


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There's talk on the street, it sounds so familiar
Great expectations, everybody's watching you

[glenneaglesfan]

I tried playing it to my son last to celebrate, but our 20 yr old CD player mashed it up, and I lost the moment. I'm pleased to say my CD appears unaffected. Well done to Ireland for the triple crown in rugby, and for the 1,2,3 in the Cheltenham gold cup. It may be sad, but I like to listen to WMT at least once a day.

I'd love to hear the Byrds version. It seems like a very old folk song, hence Glenn's referral to the McPeats. Does anyone know its origin?


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This way to happiness...

[sodascouts]

I agree. He sounded great on the Byrd's Lazy Days in 1973.


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[sodascouts]

I found this here:


The lyrics were written by the Scottish poet Robert Tannahill (1774 - 1810) of Paisley. It is titled The Braes of Balquidder (with variations on spelling though the town is pronounced 'Balwhither') and can be found in printed works as early as 1742. The version by Tannahill first appeared in the collection of songs Pocket Encyclopedia of Scotch, English, and Irish Songs, II in 1818. [...] The song is sometimes credited to Francis McPeake of the McPeake Family, as Rod Stewart found out when he attempted to copyright the song as his own work under the title "Purple Heather" on his 1995 A Spanner in the Works. The McPeake family had a hit with the song in the 1960s, when they released it as "Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go?" [Apparently McPeake's melody differs from the original, and he modified the lyrics somewhat, hence his claim.]


Additional info on "The Braes o' Balquihidder" is found here:


[It] is very probable that this song was the original form of "Wild Mountain Thyme." It's a very lovely song, performed by the Tannahill Weavers on capernaum. According to the capernaum liner notes, "The Braes o' Balquihidder" appeared twice in R.A. Smith's Scottish Minstrel (1821-1824) - Vol I, p. 49 and Vol. IV, p. 89. The latter air is a modification of the first and is called "The Three Carles o' Buchanan."


Irish traditional singer Elizabeth Cronin sang this song, too, but the tune was quite different. In The Songs of Elizabeth Cronin, the notes say "the song was composed by the Scottish poet Robert Tannahill and set to music by R.A. Smith." This might be the first version of Smith's tune.


Balquihidder is pronounced bal'-whither.


The village of Balquidder lies in central Scotland and is mainly known for being the burial place of Rob Roy. To this day the entire village consists of a cemetery and church ruins, a community center, a B&B, a shop or two and some absolutely breath-taking scenery.


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[glenneaglesfan]

Oh cool, that is some research, thank you, Nancy. So it's Scottish, rather than Irish. Celtic (or rather Gaelic) anyway, and really old. When the summer comes I shall seek out some wild thyme and heather just to show you all how beautiful it is.


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This way to happiness...

[sodascouts]

That would be lovely, Kate.


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[PinkCoatGirl]

I adore this song... *sighs* At my store, for St Patrick's Day, we had a CD of Irish ballads. Well guess what was on it?? Not his version, though, but a more traditional one, and on the CD cover it is called "Will Ye Go Lassie Go". I almost died everytime I heard it in the store, simply because I was thinking of Glenn's version of it.