> Folk Music > Songs > Blow the Wind Southerly

Blow the Wind Southerly

[ Roud 2619 ; Ballad Index StoR018 ; DT BLWSOUTH ; Mudcat 49498 ; trad.]

The tune and one verse of Blow the Wind Southerly appears in Bruce and Stokoe’s 1882 book Northumbrian Minstrelsy. The editors comment:

This is evidently a fragment of an older ballad, and is taken from [Cuthbert] Sharp’s Bishoprick Garland [1834]. A variation of the last two lines has been sometimes heard from old songs:

Blaw the lad ti’ the bar, ti’ the bar, ti’ the bar,
Blaw the lad ti’ the bar that I love best.

Craig Morgan Robson sang Blow the Wind Southerly in 2005 on their CD Peppers & Tomatoes. They noted:

The familiar version of this well-known Northumbrian song was written in the mid-19^th century by John Stobbs, but the original ballad (of which only a fragment survives) and tune are much older. Carolyn [Robson] learned this in school…all those years ago!

Graham Pirt sang Blow the Wind Southerly in 2008 on his and his son Sam Pirt’s Fellside CD Dance ti’ Thee Daddy.

Alden Patterson and Dashwood sang Blow the Wind on their 2018 CD By the Night. They noted:

A traditional Tyneside air originating from Northern England which we first discovered in a book by William Cole. We wrote the music to it and gave it a new second verse.

Lyrics

Blow the Wind Southerly in Northumbrian Minstrelsy

Blaw the wind southerly, southerly, southerly,
Blaw the wind southerly, south, or south-west;
My lad’s at the bar, at the bar, at the bar,
My lad’s at the bar whom I love best.

Graham Pirt sings Blow the Wind Southerly

Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly,
Blow the wind south o’er the bonny blue sea;
Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly,
Blow bonny breeze my lover to me.

They told me last night there were ships in the offing,
And I hurried down to the deep rolling sea;
But my eye could not see it, wherever might be it,
The bark that is bearing my lover to me.

Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly,
Blow the wind south that my lover may come;
Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly,
Blow bonny breeze and bring him safe home.

I stood by the lighthouse the last time we parted,
Till darkness came down o’er the deep rolling sea,
And no longer I saw the bright bark of my lover.
Blow, bonny breeze and bring him to me.

Is it not sweet to hear breezes blowing,
As lightly they come o’er the deep rolling sea?
But sweeter and dearer by far when ’tis bearing
The bark of my true love in safety to me.