698. The Gypsy Rover (Traditional Irish)

This song, also called "The Whistling Gypsy" was supposedly written by Leo McGuire in Dublin about 1950 and first sung by Joe Lynch, a popular ballad singer from Cork. According to McGuire, the song was written on a dare - that he could write a popular Irish song with a happy ending. In fact the song was well known with very few changes in the lyrics for many years before Maguire claimed copyright on it. Tommy Makem popularised it when he sang it at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival, and it has continued to be a favourite of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.

It is basically a kind of watered-down version of Child 200 (Black Jack Davey/Raggle-Taggle Gypsies), in which the girl also goes off with a gypsy, but leaves her husband rather than her father.

It has been sung and recorded by many folk groups including The Kingston Trio, The Highwaymen, The Seekers and Glenn Yarborough among others. There are also many YouTube singers who have put up videos of the song.

I sing a short version of the song here, as I really prefer the more traditional versions mentioned above, which you can also find on my channel.

You can see a playlist of my Irish songs here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=373C27204B0BB31F

For lyrics and chords of my songs please see my website: http://www.raymondcrooke.com

Category:

Music

Tags:

• folk
• song
• black
• jack
• davey
• raggle
• taggle
• whistling
• tommy
• makem
• kingston
• trio
• highwaymen
• seekers

[navojoARISTOCRAT]

been looking for an acoustic version. I converted this and put it on my mp3, thank you

[raymondcrooke]

@navojoARISTOCRAT You're most welcome.

[ElvenShalafi]

^__^ my nana used to sing this to me and my brother as a child, now I sing it to my son. thank you for posting this and reminding me of my nana

[raymondcrooke]

@ElvenShalafi You're welcome. I'm glad I could bring back those memories.

[ptwnstargazer]

So good, I just made my own attempt at this

[raymondcrooke]

@ptwnstargazer Thanks for the video response.

[ChurchsofChrist]

♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪= ♥ =☺

[headbone49]

...Don't give up your day job!!!

[raymondcrooke]

@RiverCitiDan Thanks for watching.

[seonidh]

This tag is wrong the WTG song is a scottish border ballad from 1740. The characters were all real, historical and lived in Nithsdale which is nowhere near ireland.