Comin' Through the Rye

"Comin' Thro' the Rye" is a poem written in 1782 by Robert Burns (1759–1796). The words are put to the melody of the Scottish Minstrel "Common' Frae The Town". This is a variant of the tune to which " Auld Lang Syne" is usually sung—the melodic shape is almost identical, the difference lying in the tempo and rhythm.

Origin and meaning

G. W. Napier, in an 1876 ''Notes and Queries'', wrote:

The protagonist, "Jenny", is not further identified, but there has been reference to a "Jenny from Dalry" and a longstanding legend in the Drakemyre suburb of the town of Dalry, North Ayrshire, holds that "comin thro' the rye" describes crossing a ford through the Rye Water at Drakemyre to the north of the town, downstream from Ryefield House and not far from the confluence of the Rye with the River Garnock. When this story appeared in the ''Glasgow Herald'' in 1867, it was soon disputed with the assertion that everyone understood the rye to be a field of rye, wet with dew, which also fits better with other stanzas that substitute "wheat" and "grain" for "rye". An alternative suggestion is that "the rye" was a long narrow cobblestone-paved lane, prone to puddles of water.

While the original poem is already full of sexual imagery, an alternative version makes this more explicit. It has a different chorus, referring to a phallic "staun o' staunin' graith" (roughly "an erection of astonishing size"), "kiss" is replaced by " fuck", and Jenny's "thing" in stanza four is identified as her " cunt".

Burns' lyrics

*weet – wet
*draigl't – draggled
*gin – given, in the sense of "if"
*cry – call out or help*warl – world
*ken – know
*ain – own

Lyrics usually sung ("Ilka lassie")

Even the "cleaner" version of the Burns lyrics is quite bawdy, and it is this one, or an "Anglized" version of it, that is most commonly "covered".

''The Catcher in the Rye''

The title of the novel ''The Catcher in the Rye'' (1951) by J. D. Salinger comes from the poem's name. Holden Caulfield, the protagonist, misremembers the line of the poem as "if a body catch a body" rather than "if a body meet a body". He keeps picturing children playing in a field of rye near the edge of a cliff, and himself catching them when they start to fall off.

Cover versions

*The first recording of this song was made in 1906 by Ruth Vincent.
*The song was sung by Marcella Sembrich in 1912.
*The song was covered by Marian Anderson in 1944
*The song was covered by Bill Haley & His Comets in 1956 as "Rockin' Through The Rye". Bill Haley had updated the lyrics to a more 1950's hip slang (included the lyrics, "All the lassies rock with me when rockin' through the rye"). In Sept 1956, when the record was climbing the UK charts, the single was banned by the BBC
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