wild mountain thyme

Subject: wild mountain thyme
From: pax
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 10:14 PM

please is there anyone out there to help me with this one?

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: Alba
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 10:32 PM

WILD MOUNTAIN THYME
(Jimmy McPeake)
^^^
1. Oh, the summer time is coming,
And the trees are sweetly blooming,
And the wild mountain thyme
grows around the blooming heather.

Chorus:
Will you go, lassie, go?
And we'll all go together
To pull wild mountain thyme
All around the blooming heather,
Will you go lassie, go?

2. I will build my love a bower
By yon clear and crystal fountain,
And on it I will pile
All the flowers of the mountain.
3. If my true love, she won't have me,
I will surely find another
To pull wild mountain thyme
All around the blooming heather.

4. Oh, the summer time is coming
And the trees are sweetly blooming
And the wild mountain thyme
Grows around the blooming heather.

Look under 'W' in the DT (top left) pax. Loads of info and Threads about this Song
Best of Wishes
Jude

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: Gypsy
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 10:55 PM

Yes, i think i compiled 27 verses from old threads at one time.........including the filked ones. Pretty tune, pretty lyrics.

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 11:46 PM

If I remember correctly, it was Mudcat's own Sandy Paton (Folk Legacy Records) who collected this song with his wife, Caroline, and first introduced it this side of the pond. If you put the name in the search box at the top of the threads and set the date filter back, I am sure you will find scads of threads about it.

All the best,

kat

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 11:54 PM

I just threw this one into the group for you. See all the related threads qat the top of this? Think you have enough info yet?(;<))

Enjoy

Spaw

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: GUEST,tightfisted
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 12:14 AM

Why do people keep singing "blooming" when the word is quite clearly purple on the original poem & song?

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 12:15 AM

I first learned it in the early 60's from the "Songs of Man" book by Luboff and Strocke.

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: Jim McLean
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 04:51 AM

It has been fairly well established that the McPeake's lyrics are a version of Robert Tannahill's Braes O Balquhidder although the tune is entirely different. Tannahill had two sets of lyrics, one used 'bloomin' and the other 'Highland'. There were also two tune settings by R A Smith, one to a slightly altered version of the traditional dance tune 'The Braes o Balquhidder' (various spellings) and the other to 'The Three carles o Buchanan' which is definitely not a variant of the first although I keep reading this.
Hamish Henderson in his sleeve notes to John MacDonald's Topic LP, 1974, says the air is 'The Three carles o Buchanan' but I was shocked to hear that MacDonald actually sings the McPeake's tune 'The wild Mountain Thyme'. How could Hamish make such a blunder?
I put a call out recently to see if anyone could come up with another printed version of The Three Carles ... other than that by R A Smith by to date no answer. Elizabeth Cronin also sings Tannahill's Braes o Balquhidder but her tune is different again and McColl's tune is like a slowed down version of 'Auld Maid in a Garret' which he says he got from his mother.

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: Wyrd Sister
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 04:28 PM

Cos we're too polite to sing 'bloody'?

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 07:16 AM

I had to see if heather is indeed purple.

http://www.bachcentre.com/pictures/38/heather.jpg

Tightfisted, at first I thought you wanted people to sing "...and the trees are sweetly purple." There are good reasons why that wouldn't have gone over.

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 07:19 AM

I should have said that I agree with you. Having "blooming" two times in a short verse is weak. "Purple" is more vivid, as well.

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: Wyrd Sister
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 06:00 PM

Never seen heather moors?

Although a small picture, this gives the effect. Pity you can't smell it though. Nothing like it.

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 06:13 PM

I remember Packie Byrne finishing with this..... a good thread to start on the weekend of his 90th birthday!

Kitty

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 10:25 PM

That's beautiful, Wyrd Sister! Thanks for posting the image, even if it is small.

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: nutty
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 04:03 AM

Try here leeneia ..... better seen live but a truly magnificent sight.

Heather Moor

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: Scrump
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 07:45 AM

Don't forget the Norfolk version "Wild Mountin' Time":

Oh the Springtime that is coming,
And the girls are in a dither.
'Tis the Wild Mountin' Time
And I am wondering whether

Do you go, Lassie, go?
And will we go together
At the Wild Mountin' Time -
Or will I get bloomin' Heather
Do you go Lassie go ?

My love is like a swan
With the lightness of a feather,
But her friend is like a goose
And they call her Bloomin' Heather

I will build my love a Mower
And cut down that Bloomin' Heather
Then at the Wild Mounting Time
My love will be mine forever.

If my truelove she won't go
Then I surely will not bother
For at the Wild Mounting Time
I could even fancy Heather.

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 09:34 AM

"Wild Mountin' Time" sounds like an orgy to me.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: Scrump
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 09:49 AM

If you read the words closely, Dave, you'll see that you're right :-)

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: Shaneo
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 09:58 AM

if you would like to see the Clancy's sing Wild Mountain Thyme clickhere

Plus it's my own site , and I don't mind promoting it,

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 11:28 AM

Thanks for the pictures, nutty.

When would be a good time to travel to Europe and see the heather in bloom?

As for the parody, I'm growing disenchanted with parodies. Parodies are like graffiti. Someone tried to make something fine, and when it was unproctected, someone else came along and slapped nasty things all over it.

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 11:39 AM

They have heath in Germany, too. This is the Luneberger (or Lueneberger) Heide.

http://www.walz-naturfoto.com/ansicht-l%FCneburger_heide-1-4716.htm

I used to know a lawyer who had a daughter named Heather and another named Heidi. I think it came as a surprise to him when I told him the names meant the same thing.

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 01:30 PM

Such a lovely picture from leeneia that I have to link it:
Heather

Nigel

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: Elaine Green
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 08:11 PM

Hahaha! Purple has always been kind of hazy for me. But I remember it vividly. 60's heritage, I guess!

Anyway, I've always thought this was one of the best of the courtship/biological imperative songs, capturing that drive of youth more eloquently perhaps than anything except Steve Earle's "Galway Girl." I mean, most of us do indeed "find another" if that first one "cannot go." This is a lovely, lovely song, and that moving on makes it all the more beautiful somehow.

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 08:36 PM

Caroline and I didn't "collect" the song. We learned it in 1957 from an early recording of the MacPeakes, Francis and Frank. The reason people sing "blooming" rather than "purple" is because that's what the MacPeakes sang, and that is what I sang when I recorded the song for Elektra in 1959. I taught it to Judy Collins when she and I shared an engagement at the Exodus in Denver in the spring of 1960. I remember being surprised when she changed the heather to "purple." I still prefer the MacPeakes' "blooming."
    Sandy

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 09:55 PM

G'day Sandy,

"I still prefer the MacPeakes' "blooming.""

And, indeed, Robert Tannahill's original "blooming":

The Braes O' Balquidder

Will ye go, lassie go,
To the braes o' Balquhidder?
Where the blaeberries grow,
'Mang the bonnie blooming heather;

(Courtesy of Bruce O's 1997 post in the 11th thread down in the "Related Threads".)

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: pavane
Date: 20 Feb 07 - 02:40 AM

Tightfisted, I know everyone sings

1. Oh, the summer time is coming,
And the trees are sweetly blooming,
And the wild mountain thyme
"grows around the blooming heather."


If you look at the earlier versions, you will see that the last line was clearly

"All the Valley is perfuming"

What has happened is that due to someone's mistake, the last line of the chorus has replaced the last line of the verse. We have done our best to restore it, but the audience are always puzzled.

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: Wyrd Sister
Date: 20 Feb 07 - 04:57 AM

Leeneia, the heather blooms in August in the Peak district/North York Moors area of England.

Double it up with a visit to Whitby Folk Week, where a garland of heather gathered locally is paraded in to the finale and everyone sings Wild Mountain Thyme (as a kind of Auld Lang Syne moment I suppose) and takes some heather away with them.

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 20 Feb 07 - 06:52 AM

Thanks Pavane, having enjoyed the perfume of blooming wild heather (well wouldn't you be blooming wild if you got misquoted so often!) I think the last line you quote is perfect.

"Oh, the summer time is coming,
And the trees are sweetly blooming,
And the wild mountain thyme
All the Valley is perfuming."


Andy

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: GUEST,David Lewis
Date: 06 Nov 14 - 05:53 PM

Nice version of this here (with the full history)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sne9Q5on6eU

Subject: RE: wild mountain thyme
From: Tradsinger
Date: 06 Nov 14 - 07:07 PM

Would you believe that I once got thrown out of a pub while singing this song! It was in the 70s in Hampshire and we had had a wonderful evening of singing and I launched into the song at the end of the evening. Everyone was singing their heads off until the lordlord came into the bar (it was round about closing time) and called out in a loud voice "Stop!" and thereupon told us all to get out. I can only think he was going through some personal crisis at the time and it is the only time I have been thrown out of a pub!

I once asked Peter Kennedy what was his most memorable moment in song collecting and he told me it was when he heard the McPeake family sing the song.

Tradsinger