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Arrangement: Ian J. Watts / Mike Wilbury · Singalongasong Band / ClassicRocks
Lyrics
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 roses falling,
It's you, it's you must go and I must bide.
But come ye back when summer's in the meadow,
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow.
It's I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow,
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so!
But when ye come and all the flowers are dying,
And I am gone, as gone I well may be,
You'll come and find the place where I am lying,
And kneel and say a prayer there for me.
And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me,
And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be.
If you will only tell me that you love me,
Then I will sleep in peace until you come to me.
Traditional lyrics — public domain. Arrangement © Singalongasong Band / ClassicRocks.
History & Background
History & Origin
"Oh Danny Boy" sets the words of the English lawyer and songwriter Frederic Weatherly (1910) to the ancient Irish melody "Londonderry Air", one of the most beautiful tunes in the Celtic tradition. Weatherly originally wrote the words to a different tune; his sister-in-law, newly arrived from America, introduced him to the Londonderry Air melody, and he immediately realised his words would fit it perfectly.
The Londonderry Air itself is of uncertain origin, first notated in 1851 by Jane Ross of Limavady, who heard it played by a passing fiddler and wrote it down. Whether it is a genuinely ancient folk melody or a more recent composition presented as traditional has been debated ever since.
The song is structured as a farewell — a parent or lover speaking to a departing Danny — but its second verse makes the farewell potentially permanent. The speaker who will be "lying" in a "place" when Danny returns is dying or already dead, and the final verse speaks of hearing Danny's footstep from beneath the earth. It is a song about love that transcends death, the promise to hear and to welcome even from beyond the grave.
"Oh Danny Boy" became an unofficial anthem of the Irish diaspora and is one of the most frequently performed songs at funerals in Ireland, Britain, and Irish communities worldwide. Its combination of melody and text is widely considered among the finest in the English language.
