“The Water is Wide”

Traditional

Mandoline Banjo (aDADE)

 

“The Water is Wide” is the modern title for a Scottish folk song.  The old title “Waly, Waly” means “woe is me.”  The tune is a variant of Child Ballad 204, and the words were compiled from various Broadside Ballads in 1906 by Cecil Sharp in Folk Songs from Somerset.  In it love is presented as a joy that soon fades as “love grows old and waxes cold.”

 

Pete Seeger made the song popular during the Folk Revival, though he played it on a guitar.  The tune has been covered by many performers since including Joan Baez, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Eva Cassidy.

 

The Mandoline Banjo is a little hard to record because it is so soft, but I wanted you to hear this cousin of the banjo that is rarely played anymore because it was, in fact, the inspiration for Slowhand.

 

The images on the video are from Butternut Creek which runs behind my house and through my hometown of Blairsville, Georgia.  The last one is a watercolor by my friend, the artist Dale Cochran, that was used for the cover of the first recording by my group Butternut Creek and friends in 1996.

 

Return to home page for more tunes.