G'day Wolfgang and all,

I had a listen to a CD I bought from Martyn Whyndham-Read when he was out here last year. He has the song and uses the original poem title "The Sailor Home from the Sea". His notes indicate that he is pretty hazy about when and where he first heard the poem and he says that the tune is the first tune he wrote (about 1965).

I haven't been able to compare that with the MW-R tune I downloaded but I presume they will be the same and suspect that this tune (or a variant) will be used by the Fureys and the Clancys, since it was Martyn that made the song popular in the UK (and, presumably, Ireland).

The whole thread has been an interesting study in folk-processing of songs ... despite the fact that we live in an era of writing, printing and recording. Over the 34 years from the publication of the first 2 stanzas in 'Tradition' magazine, vol. 1, no. 1, (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) this song has spread over the world and seen a lot of strange changes as people have wrestled with words that meant nothing to them (the towns Broome and Darwin in particular) and there's probably a thesis in it for someone!

Regards,

Bob Bolton