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Rambling Robin
Ramblin' Robin
[ Roud V5416 ; words trad., music Peter Bellamy]
Christy Moore sang Rambling Robin in 1972 on his Trailer album Prosperous. He commented in album's liner notes:
I learned this song from Mike Harding of Manchester just before I made this record. Most large families have at least one Rambling Robin, and like the prodigal son he always returns, but in this case the fatted calf was not to be had. Andy [Irvine]'s mandolin playing on this track is really beautiful.
Peter Bellamy recorded this broadsheet song for both of his 1975 albums, Peter Bellamy and Tell It Like It Was. He commented in the former album's notes:
This is from a broadsheet, the version printed by Harkness. It comes from the Preston Library. It came to me without a tune, so I have provided one.
and in the latter album's notes:
When Brian Dewhurst, the fine Lancashire singer, sent me copies of a number of Preston broadsheets, I could not resist making a tune for this Spencer-the-Rover-ish verses.
John Spiers & Jon Boden learned Rambling Robin from Peter Bellamy's singing and recorded it for their 2008 CD Vagabond. Jon Boden also sang it on Peter Bellamy's birthday as the 8 September 2010 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day.
Chris Sarjeant sang Rambling Robin in 2012 on his WildGoose CD Heirlooms. He noted in his sleeve notes:
I learnt this Yorkshire song from my mother who sang it on my parents' final album, The Streams of Lovely Nancy.
Lyrics
Peter Bellamy sings Ramblin' Robin | Spiers & Boden sing Ramblin' Robin |
---|---|
When first I left childhood and come to a man, |
When first out of childhood I came to a man, |
O'er hill and o'er mountain I used for to go, |
And I wandered o'er mountains and valleys below, |
But the wind and the rain they gave me quite cold, |
Content was I through wet and through cold |
When sixteen long years they was over and past, | |
And when my past folly was come to an end, |
When fifteen long years they were over and past, |
Where now shall I wander, oh where shall I go? |
Oh, where shall I wander now, where shall I go? |