The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #51969 Message #974723
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
30-Jun-03 - 06:57 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Bonnie Broom (as sung by Glengarry Boys)
Subject: RE: BONNIE BROOM (as sung by Glengarry Boys)
If it's the Cruel Sister you're after, then it's the Pentangle revision of 1970. The "bonny broom" refrain doesn't belong to the song traditionally; they borrowed it, and the tune, from a set of Riddles Wisely Expounded which appeared in D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy (see Child 1A). Anybody who has recorded Cruel Sister / Binnorie (etc) with that refrain has, whether they know it or not, used not a traditional, but a modern remaking of the song.
The search engine here will find everything you need if you ask it for lay the bent to the bonny broom. The subject has been discussed a great many times here in the past.