"The Wild Rover"
#580 / Flood Time Capsule: 2018
“The Wild Rover” is likely to be performed thousands of times this week at Irish-themed pubs and clubs, as The Flood performed it eight years ago this week at the St. Patrick’s Day edition of the good old “Route 60 Saturday Night” series. Click below for a video of that moment:
But News Flash: The song that some have called “Ireland’s second national anthem” isn’t Irish.
Uh, say what now?
English and Scottish Roots
It’s true. As a wordy broadside ballad, the song originated in England the 1670s. Researcher Brian Peters says it was initially written by Thomas Lanfiere and was titled “The Good Fellow’s Resolution; or, The Bad Husband’s Return From His Folly.”
This original 17th-century version served as a warning to ale-soaked husbands, detailing a hard-drinking man who finally sees the error of his ways.
Over the centuries, this parent song was heavily edited down and rebranded as “The Wild Rover,” and eventually it gained its famous chorus:
And it’s no, nay, never
No, nay, never no more
Will I play the wild rover
No, never, no more
A century after its composition, the song gained widespread popularity through printed broadsheets, frequently issued by prominent street ballad printers in London. Collections in the Bodleian Library contain printed versions of the ballad dating between 1813 and 1838.
The song also is thought to have roots in an older tune called “The Green Bed” (also known in Scotland as “Johnny and the Landlady”), which similarly tells the story of a sailor in an uncharitable boarding house.
Temperance Ties
The irony of “The Wild Rover,” of course, is that it is a drinking song about not drinking. (No, nay, never, indeed!) That’s because as it circulated globally, spreading through Scotland and on to America, it was championed as a temperature song. An early US printing appeared in the 1845 book The American Songster.
The ballad also traveled extensively by sea, likely brought by British sailors to Australia, where it enjoyed massive popularity among bush workers. Today, the Roud Folk Song Index lists more than 200 versions collected across England, Scotland, Ireland, North America and Australia.
Getting Celtic
The tune made a dramatic shift in the 20th century.
That is when it transitioned from a cautionary temperance tale to a rousing pub anthem. While traditional English singers like Sam Larner kept the older, more reflective versions alive in the 1950s, the song’s modern trajectory changed forever in 1964.
That year, The Dubliners learned the tune from a 1960 folk book by Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl. The Dubliners’ hit arrangement fundamentally flipped the song’s mood from temperance to carousing, cementing its lasting legacy as the ultimate Irish singalong standard.
Happy St. Pat’s. Erin go bragh, y’all!
More of The Auld Sod?
Finally, if you’d like a little Flood in your festivities, remember the free Radio Floodango music streaming service provides a St. Patrick Blend in its playlists.
