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The Road Not Taken / Indian Tea

[Roger Wilson after Robert Frost]

Roger Wilson wrote Indian Tea based on Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken. He sang it in 1998 on his CD with Chris Wood and Martin Carthy, Wood – Wilson – Carthy. He noted:

The chorus of this song was complete but homeless, until a friend lent me a copy of Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken. The poem, distilled down slightly, eventually became the set of four verses used here.

Jim Malcolm sang The Road Not Taken on his 2009 album The First Cold Day. He noted:

For three years I have led songwriting classes at the Swannanoa Gathering in North Carolina and this Robert Frost poem was brought to my attention by one of my students. I was struck by its lyricism and couldn’t stop myself making a song from it.

Salt House sang The Road Not Taken, “a new setting of Frost’s poem from his 1916 collection Mountain Interval”, on their 2018 CD Undersong.

Lyrics

Roger Wilson sings Indian Tea

Two roads forked in a yellow wood
Being one traveller long I stood
I looked down one as far I could
To where it bent around

I took the other one just as fair
For it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them about the same

Chorus:
Give yourself a break
Your poor old head is aching
Sit down with a glass of Indian tea
Sip in the here and now
You might have a question
A decision of direction
A blinding truth might smack your eye
Along the road less travelled by

Both roads that morning equal lay
I left the first for another day
I knew how way leads on to way
I doubled I’d return

I shall relate this with a sigh
Two roads forked in a wood and I
Took the road less travelled by
A difference that has made

Chorus

Salt House sing The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, [as] just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted [if] I should [ever] come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

(repeat first verse)