Themes and construction
The imagery of the lyrics describes the challenges of love: "Love is handsome, love is kind" during the novel honeymoon phase of any relationship. However, as time progresses, "love grows old, and waxes cold." Even true love, the lyrics say, can "fade away like morning dew." The modern lyric for "The Water Is Wide" was consolidated and named by Cecil Sharp in 1906 from multiple older sources in southern England, following English lyrics with very different stories and styles but the same Meter (poetry), meter. Earlier sources were frequently published as Broadsheet ballad, broadsheets without music. Performers or publishers would insert, remove, and adapt verses from one piece to another: floating verses are also characteristic of Metre (hymn), hymns and Traditional blues verses, blues verses. Lyrics from different sources could be used with different melodies of the same metre. Consequently, each verse in the modern song may not have been originally composed in the context of its surrounding verses nor be consistent in theme.Variants
"The Water is Wide" may be considered a family of lyrics with a particular hymn-like tune. "O Waly Waly" (Wail, Wail) may be sometimes a particular lyric, sometimes a family tree of lyrics, sometimes "Jamie Douglas", sometimes one melody or another with the correct meter, and sometimes versions of the modern compilation "The Water is Wide" (usually with the addition of the verse starting "O Waly, Waly"). Benjamin Britten used the melody and verses of "The Water is Wide" for his arrangement — which does not have the "O Waly, Waly" verse, yet is titled "Waly, Waly". A different melody is used for the song, "When Cockleshells turn Silver Bells" also subtitled "Waly, Waly". Yet another melody for "O Waly, Waly" is associated with the song, "Jamie Douglas (song), Jamie Douglas" lyric.Ancestors
A key ancestor is the lyric "Waly, Waly, Gin Love Be Bonny" from Ramsay's "Tea Table Miscellany" (1724), given below. This is a jumble of verses from other lyrics including "Arthur's Seat shall be my Bed" (1701), "The Distressed Virgin" (1633) and the Scottish scandal ballad "Jamie Douglas" (1776). The use of 'cockleshells' and 'silver bells' in Thomson's version (1725) pre-dates the earliest published "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" (1744) and may relate to torture. Some though not all versions of "Jamie Douglas" have the first verse that starts "O, Waly, Waly". Andrew Lang found a variant verse in Ramsay's "Tea Table Miscellany" from a sixteenth-century song.Cousins
Predecessors of "The Water is Wide" also influenced lyrics for other folk and popular songs, such as the modern version of the Irish "Carrickfergus" (1960s) and the American "Sweet Peggy Gordan" (1880). The Irish folk song "Carrickfergus (song), Carrickfergus" shares the lines 'but the sea is wide/I cannot swim over/And neither have I wings to fly'. This song may be preceded by an Irish language song whose first line ("It was a noble woman") matches closely the opening line of one known variation of Lord Jamie Douglas: 'I was a lady of renown'. However, the content of the English-language "Carrickfergus" includes material clearly from the Scots/English songs not in any known copy of suggesting considerable interplay among all known traditions. The Welsh version is called "". It is related to Child Ballad 204 (Roud Folk Song Index, Roud number 87), "Jamie Douglas", which in turn refers to the ostensibly unhappy first marriage of James Douglas, 2nd Marquis of Douglas to Lady Barbara Erskine.Descendants
The modern "The Water Is Wide" was popularized by Pete Seeger in the folk revival. There have been multiple subsequent variations of the song and several names — including "Waly, Waly", "There is a Ship", and "Cockleshells" — which use and re-use different selections of lyrics. The song "Van Diemen's Land" on the album ''Rattle and Hum'' by U2 uses a variation of the melody of "The Water Is Wide". The song "When the Pipers Play," sung by Isla St. Clair on the video of the same name, uses the melody of "The Water is Wide." In 1991, the French singer Renaud recorded "" (The Ballad of Northern Ireland), introducing the tune widely to the francophone world. And, in the Dunkerque carnival, they sing "" based on the same melody.Lyrics
Waly, Waly, Gin Love Be Bonny
The lyrics for "Waly, Waly, Gin Love Be Bonny" from ''Ramsay's Tea Table Miscellany'' (1724).The Water Is Wide
Some popular lyrics for "The Water is Wide" are within the book ''Folk Songs For Solo Singers'', though many versions have been printed and sung. :The water is wide, I cannot get over :Neither have I wings to fly :Give me a boat that can carry two :And both shall row, my love and I :A ship there is and she sails the sea :She's loaded deep as deep can be :But not so deep as the love I'm in :I know not if I sink or swim :I leaned my back against an oak :Thinking it was a trusty tree :But first it bent and then it broke :So did my love prove false to me :I reached my finger into some soft bush :Thinking the fairest flower to find :I pricked my finger to the bone :And left the fairest flower behind :Oh love be handsome and love be kind :Gay as a jewel when first it is new :But love grows old and waxes cold :And fades away like the morning dew :Must I go bound while you go free :Must I love a man who doesn't love me :Must I be born with so little art :As to love a man who'll break my heart :When cockle shells turn silver bells :Then will my love come back to me :When roses bloom in winter's gloom :Then will my love return to me Jürgen Klos traces the first verse to "I'm Often Drunk And Seldom Sober" (c. 1780), the second to "The Seamans leave taken of his sweetest Margery" (c. 1660), the third to "Oh Waly, Waly, Gin Love Be Bonny" (already 'old' when published in c. 1724), and the fourth to "Hey trollie lollie, love is jolly" (c. 1620.) He could not trace the melody before 1905.Round
Recent renditions
Arrangements
"O Waly, Waly" has been a popular choice for arrangements by classical composers, in particular Benjamin Britten, whose arrangement for voice and piano was published in 1948. John Rutter uses it for the Third Movement in his "Suite for Strings" (1973). The tune is often used for the hymn "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" by Isaac Watts. It is also the tune for John L. Bell, John Bell's "When God Almighty came to Earth" (1987) and Fred Pratt Green, F. Pratt Green's "An Upper Room did our Lord Prepare" (1974). Additionally, Hal Hopson, Hal H. Hopson used the tune for his work "The Gift of Love". Hopson also wrote Christian lyrics to "The Water is Wide", which are often performed by church choirs. Because the melody is consistent with the words of Adon Olam, a prayer closing most modern Jewish services, Susan Colin performed a version with an also-revised prayer. One congregation's choir performed it with the standard Hebrew prayer. One instrumental version is consistent with the stanzas of the prayer. Oregon (band), Oregon has a jazz version of this on their 30th studio album, ''Lantern (Oregon album), Lantern''.Recordings
The song has been recorded by multiple artists. Esther & Abi Ofarim recorded "Oh Waly Waly" in 1963 for their album ''Esther Ofarim and Abraham, Songs Der Welt'', and for their live concert album in 1969. Esther re-released the song on box-set CD in 1999.In popular culture
Television
The CBS TV series ''The Unit'' featured an episode in The Unit (season 2), season 2 titled "The Water is Wide (The Unit), The Water is Wide", in which Unit members must disarm a bomb in the office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Secretary-General of the UN, while their wives seek an alleged Vietnam War POW/MIA issue, POW/MIA soldier in Vietnam.Films
* Gerard Way covered the song for Kevin Smith's film ''Tusk (2014 film), Tusk''. This version has also been used in Smith’s 2022 film Clerks III. * PJ Harvey recorded this song in 2014 for the second season of BBC Two's ''Peaky Blinders (TV series), Peaky Blinders''. * Performed by John Rutter and the Cambridge Singers, the song features in Isobel Waller-Bridge's score for the 2020 film ''Emma (2020 film), Emma''.References
External links