For the longest time pretty much everyone in the folk circuit was convinced that this was a song written by Robert Burns.  Fairly recently we have come to learn that while this song has some similarities with imagery written by Bobby Burns, it is in fact a song properly named “Wild Mountain Thyme” and was composed by Francis McPeake 1st, who supposedly wrote the song himself for his wife. It was first recorded by his nephew of the same name in 1957 for the BBC. It is, in fact, a variant of the song “The Braes of Balquhither” by Scottish poet Robert Tannahill (1774–1810), who by the way was a contemporary of Robert Burns.

Cliff sings this one a capella usually but Joseph typically plays the concertina to it in C.

 

 

        C     F       C
Oh, the summertime is coming

        F                 Em
And the trees are sweetly blooming

        F    C        Am                              
And the wild mountain thyme

       Dm        C        F
Grows around the blooming heather

        C  F  G    C
Will ye go lassie, go?

 

Chorus:

          F        Em    
And we’ll all go together

         F    C        Am                                 
To pluck wild mountain thyme

    Dm         C        F                 
All around the blooming heather

        C  F  G    C
Will ye go lassie, go?

 

 

I will build my love a bower

Near yon pure crystal fountain

And on it I will pile

All the flowers of the mountain                                 

 

CHORUS

 

If my true love she were gone

I would surely find another

Where wild mountain thyme

Grows around the blooming heather

 

CHORUS