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When Bob Dylan appeared at the 1969 Isle of Wight festival he performed 17 songs, only one of which was not self-written. “Wild Mountain Thyme”, the Scottish/Irish folk song, was perhaps an olive branch to British folk fans who had been enraged by Dylan’s switch to electric music. “Judas!” was the famous shout from a Manchester audience member in 1966.
Whatever his motives, it was a crowd-pleasing choice: the ballad was still popular two decades after its modern incarnation. With its enchanting melody and sublime, soaring chorus, it remains a folk-music fixture, with Melody Maker magazine once describing it as “the folk scene’s national anthem”.
It is based on the traditional ballad “The Braes of Balquhither”, which was written around the turn of the 19th century by Scottish poet Robert Tannahill and composer Robert Archibald Smith. Tannahill’s lyrics concern a man persuading his lover to walk among the braes (hills) of a Perthshire village called Balquhither to enjoy their beauty, including the wild mountain thyme’s pink blooms which grow around the purple heather (the modern song is sometimes known as “Purple Heather”). Such ballads extolling the virtues of rural over urban life became popular during the industrial revolution.
The song reached Ireland, and in the late 1940s was modified by Belfast musician Francis McPeake. His altered melody was more beautiful than its predecessor, and although he followed the spirit of Tannahill’s words, he adapted them to his own life. His lines: “If my true love she were gone/I will surely find another” reflected the death of his first wife, Mary, and his wonderment at finding love again with his second, Alice. He called the song “Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go?” from the chorus line — yet another alternative title.
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The McPeake Family became a popular folk act during the 1950s. He and his son, also named Francis, first recorded the song, accompanied by their uilleann pipes, for a BBC recording in 1952, which appeared on the 1955 anthology LP Folk Song Today. In the early 1960s the family group, now six-strong, were filmed performing it by US folk star Pete Seeger, who in turn wrote a song based on it called “Flowers of Peace”.
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In 1965 McPeake Family toured America where they collaborated with Judy Collins, Joan Baez and Dylan. Baez and Dylan, then a couple, were filmed singing an off-the-cuff duet of “Wild Mountain Thyme”. Collins, meanwhile, had recorded “Wild Mountain Thyme” in 1961, singing it magnificently.
Myriad recordings have been made since by folk, pop and rock artists. The Byrds’ 1966 version showed that the song could work as folk rock. It incorporates Roger McGuinn’s chiming 12-string Rickenbacker guitar, fine harmonies and perfectly restrained strings.
Long John Baldry, the British blues singer, captured its emotional essence on his 1972 LP Everything Stops for Tea, which was produced by his protégés Rod Stewart and Elton John. The track features delightful mandolin playing by Davey Johnstone of Elton John’s backing band.
Stewart himself, however, turned the song into an overblown rock ballad 23 years later. Thin Lizzy had already provided a more exhilarating hard-rock arrangement, in 1979, on the track “Róisín Dubh (Black Rose): A Rock Legend”, which melded it with other traditional Irish songs.
Van Morrison moulded it to his inimitable style in 1973, using the “Purple Heather” title. He uses a bluesy, jazzy arrangement, before piano, strings and Morrison’s scat singing take it to a triumphal conclusion. The Chieftains and country singer Don Williams collaborated elegantly in 2003, with Williams’s stately baritone, embellished by Paddy Moloney’s uilleann pipes and Derek Bell’s harp, returning the song to its Irish roots.
A 1970 recording by the late Sandy Denny’s band, Fotheringay, was not released until 2008, but it was worth the wait to hear her exquisite delivery. Even more affecting is Gerry Rafferty’s rendition from around 2007, also released posthumously, in 2021.
The song inspired the 2020 film Wild Mountain Thyme, starring Jamie Dornan, Emily Blunt and Christopher Walken. Blunt sings the song sweetly enough, but the film was roundly panned for its cod Irishness. “What in the name of holy bejaysus is this cowpat?”, wrote The Irish Times’s film critic.
Perhaps, instead, watch the video of Kate Rusby’s divine singing of it at the 2007 Cambridge Folk Festival, where the rapt crowd joins in the chorus, swaying with entrancement at this timeless masterpiece.
Let us know your memories of ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’ in the comments section below
The paperback edition of ‘The Life of a Song: The stories behind 100 of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by Chambers
Music credits: Columbia; The Lost Noises Office; Smithsonian Folkways; Otey; Sony; Warner; Mercury; Exile; BMG; Renaissance; Parlophone; Lakeshore