O Waly, waly (a lament – "woe is me") up the bank,Īnd waly, waly, yon burn-side (riverside),īut first it bow'd, and syne (soon) it brak (broke), And, in the Dunkerque carnival, they sing " putain d'Islande" based on the same melody. In 1991, the French singer Renaud recorded " La ballade nord-irlandaise" (The Ballad of Northern Ireland), introducing the tune widely to the francophone world. Clair on the video of the same name, uses the melody of "The Water is Wide." The song "When the Pipers Play," sung by Isla St. The song "Van Diemen's Land" on the album Rattle and Hum by U2 uses a variation of the melody of "The Water Is Wide". There have been multiple subsequent variations of the song and several names - including "Waly, Waly", "There is a Ship", and "Cockleshells" - which use and re-use different selections of lyrics. The modern "The Water Is Wide" was popularized by Pete Seeger in the folk revival. It is related to Child Ballad 204 ( Roud number 87), "Jamie Douglas", which in turn refers to the ostensibly unhappy first marriage of James Douglas, 2nd Marquis of Douglas to Lady Barbara Erskine. The Welsh version is called " Mae'r môr yn faith". However, the content of the English-language "Carrickfergus" includes material clearly from the Scots/English songs not in any known copy of A Bhí Bean Uasal suggesting considerable interplay among all known traditions.
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This song may be preceded by an Irish language song whose first line A Bhí Bean Uasal ("It was a noble woman") matches closely the opening line of one known variation of Lord Jamie Douglas: 'I was a lady of renown'. The Irish folk song " Carrickfergus" shares the lines 'but the sea is wide/I cannot swim over/And neither have I wings to fly'. Predecessors of "The Water is Wide" also influenced lyrics for other folk and popular songs, such as the modern version of the Irish "Carrickfergus" (1960s) and the American "Sweet Peggy Gordan" (1880). Andrew Lang found a variant verse in Ramsay's "Tea Table Miscellany" from a sixteenth-century song. Some though not all versions of "Jamie Douglas" have the first verse that starts "O, Waly, Waly". The use of 'cockleshells' and 'silver bells' in Thomson's version (1725) pre-dates the earliest published " Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" (1744) and may relate to torture. This is a jumble of verses from other lyrics including "Arthur's Seat shall be my Bed" (1701), "The Distressed Virgin" (1633) and the Scottish scandal ballad "Jamie Douglas" (1776). Yet another melody for "O Waly, Waly" is associated with the song, " Jamie Douglas" lyric.Ī key ancestor is the lyric "Waly, Waly, Gin Love Be Bonny" from Ramsay's "Tea Table Miscellany" (1724), given below. A different melody is used for the song, "When Cockleshells turn Silver Bells" also subtitled "Waly, Waly". Benjamin Britten used the melody and verses of "The Water is Wide" for his arrangement - which does not have the "O Waly, Waly" verse, yet is titled "Waly, Waly". "O Waly Waly" (Wail, Wail) may be sometimes a particular lyric, sometimes a family tree of lyrics, sometimes "Jamie Douglas", sometimes one melody or another with the correct meter, and sometimes versions of the modern compilation "The Water is Wide" (usually with the addition of the verse starting "O Waly, Waly"). "The Water is Wide" may be considered a family of lyrics with a particular hymn-like tune.
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Consequently, each verse in the modern song may not have been originally composed in the context of its surrounding verses nor be consistent in theme. Lyrics from different sources could be used with different melodies of the same metre.
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Performers or publishers would insert, remove, and adapt verses from one piece to another: floating verses are also characteristic of hymns and blues verses. Earlier sources were frequently published as broadsheets without music. The modern lyric for "The Water Is Wide" was consolidated and named by Cecil Sharp in 1906 from multiple older sources in southern England, following English lyrics with very different stories and styles but the same meter.
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However, as time progresses, "love grows old, and waxes cold." Even true love, the lyrics say, can "fade away like morning dew." The imagery of the lyrics describes the challenges of love: "Love is handsome, love is kind" during the novel honeymoon phase of any relationship.