sung by Martin Carthy (second youtube vid = The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem)
This song has been stuck in my head since last week, I keep randomly humming it without realizing I'm doing so. I blame St. Patrick's day, it makes me do all sorts of silly things like dancing around the house, wearing my hair down, using my pseudo-irish accent, and eating loads of Irish butter. I'm probably only 1/128 Irish but I can't help my love for all things Irish ^_^
And now about the song, this melancholy ballad (written by Robert Dwyer Joyce) is about a young rebel who is about to give up his relationship with the girl he loves and become part of the 1798 rebellion (aka the United Irishmen Rebellion), an uprising that against British rule which would last several months.
Now that I think about it a little more I guess there's also the bit of rebellious blood (and revolutionary thinking ^_~) in me inherited from my great-grandparents that makes me sympathetic to the Irish rebels (however, I am NOT a fan of the IRA, the Real IRA, or any other affiliated parties).
UPDATE 3/28/11: Here is the version performed by The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem
lyrics:
- I sat within a valley green
- I sat me with my true love
- My sad heart strove to choose between
- The old love and the new love
- The old for her, the new that made
- Me think on Ireland dearly
- While soft the wind blew down the glade
- And shook the golden barley
- Twas hard the woeful words to frame
- To break the ties that bound us
- But harder still to bear the shame
- Of foreign chains around us
- And so I said, "The mountain glen
- I'll seek at morning early
- And join the bold United Men
- While soft winds shake the barley"
- While sad I kissed away her tears
- My fond arms 'round her flinging
- The foeman's shot burst on our ears
- From out the wildwood ringing
- A bullet pierced my true love's side
- In life's young spring so early
- And on my breast in blood she died
- While soft winds shook the barley
- I bore her to some mountain stream
- And many's the summer blossom
- I placed with branches soft and green
- About her gore-stained bosom
- I wept and kissed her clay-cold corpse
- Then rushed o'er vale and valley
- My vengeance on the foe to wreak
- While soft winds shook the barley
- But blood for blood without remorse
- I've taken at Oulart Hollow
- And laid my true love's clay-cold corpse
- Where I full soon may follow
- As 'round her grave I wander drear
- Noon, night and morning early
- With breaking heart when e'er I hear
- The wind that shakes the barley
